Nokia 808 Pure View Smartphone Has a 41-Megapixel Camera Sensor

Can lots of resolution make up for a lack of optical zoom lenses? Nokia hopes to find out

• BY STAN HORACZEK 

ENLARGE

Two years ago, Nokia exec Anssi Vanjoki claimed that phones would be making DSLRs obsoletesooner than later. That's kind of crazy, of course, but it seems like they're still actually working on making it happen. Their new 808 phone has a 1/1.2" sensor with a total of 41-megapixels on-board. Yes, 41-megapixels.

It sounds a bit outlandish. In fact, some people were upset with Nikon for putting 36-megapixels on a full-frame sensor in their new D800. But, Nokia's technology is a bit different than the brute-force megapixel attack of days past. The 808 can take photos up to 38-megapixels in resolution, checking in at 7728 x 5354, but it doesn't seem like they intend for you to do that all too often. Their intention was to combine those pixels to make better 5- or 8-megapixel images.

According to reports, the Pure View has been in the works for more than five years, which helps explain why the new phone runs the now-ancient Symbian OS. The phone does what's called "oversampling," which combines pixels on the sensor in order to make clearer images at smaller resolutions. It's not an entirely new concept, but it makes for an impressive headline.

Part of the driving force behind the development was the fact that fitting optical zooming lenses into a phone is difficult, if not impossible. So, the phone uses its megapixel power to let you "zoom" up to 3x without a loss of image quality, or so they claim. That "zoom" power gets pumped up to 4x in video mode, since full HD video only requires 1920 x 1080 resolution. When you zoom, you're just selecting which area of the sensor to use the capture the image.

This is different than typical digital zoom because Nokia has limited the zoom range to prevent upscaling. It won't zoom past the point where the final image resolution exceeds that of the input resolution.

The sensor isn't the only piece of fancy photography kit that they put in the 808. The lens is a Carl Zeiss with a maximum Aperture of F/2.4 and has a full-frame equivalent of 26 or 28mm, depending on the aspect ratio you choose. Plus, the flash acts like a real camera flash, rather than a janky flashlight like some other smartphones. 

In the end, it's an interesting experiment. The sensor is still very small considering the resolution. It's more in-line with what you'd find in a typical compact, which still makes is far smaller than anything you'll find in a DSLR or even a Micro Four-Thirds camera.

If you dig, you can find a couple sample images online, but we're always weary to trust those. We'll be interested to get our hands on one of these at some point. Unfortunately, that will likely be a ways off as it's only being officially released in Europe for the moment where it will cost 450 Euros. But, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see it showing up on a Windows Phone here in the States before long.

More details on the Nokia official site

New electron interactions observed

THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES

Scientists have spotted electrons interacting in new ways at the quantum level. Image: alengo/iStockphoto Physicists at the University of New South Wales have observed a new kind of interaction that can arise between electrons in a single-atom silicon transistor. The findings, published this week in the journalPhysical Review Letters, offer a more complete understanding of the mechanisms for electron transport in nanostructures at the atomic level. The study is already available on arXiv.  “We have been able to study some of the most complicated transport mechanisms that can arise up to the single atom level,” says lead author Dr Giuseppe C. Tettamanzi, from the School of Physics at UNSW. The results indicate that quantum electronics could be driven by the orbital nature of electrons, and not just the spin or the charge as was previously thought, he says, which opens the door for a new type of electronics to be explored. The study, in collaboration with scientists from the ICMM in Madrid and the Kavli Institute in The Netherlands, describes how a single electron bound to a dopant atom in a silicon matrix can interact with many electrons throughout the transistor. In these geometries, electron-electron interactions can be dominated by something called the Kondo effect. Conventionally, this arises from the spin degree of freedom, which represents an angular momentum intrinsic to each electron and is always in the up or in the down state. However, researchers also observed that similar interactions could arise through the orbital degree of freedom of the electron. This describes the wave-like function of an electron and can be used to help determine an electrons’ probable location around the atom’s nucleus. Importantly, by applying a strong magnetic field, the researchers were able to tune this effect to eliminate the spin-spin interactions while preserving the orbital-orbital interactions. The Kondo effect is considered one of the most complex phenomena found in solid-state physics, says Tettamanzi. In bulk material it causes an increase in electrical resistivity – the ease of current flow – at certain temperatures. But in nanostructures, like the system studied here, it allows for the precise quantifications of electron interactions up to the single elements.  “By tuning the effect in two different symmetries of the fundamental state of the system…we have observed a symmetry crossover identical to those seen in high-energy physics,” says Tettamanzi. “In our case this crossover was observed simply by using a semiconductor device which is not too different from the transistor you use daily to send your emails.” Tettamanzi, who was recently awarded a prestigious ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award, will now investigate another transport mechanism that can arise in quantum dots and single atom transistors called “quantised charge pumping”. The idea here is to create a current flowing through a nanostructure without applying a voltage between the leads, but by applying varying potentials at one or more gates of the transistor, in an apparent violation of Ohm’s law. Editor's Note: Original news release can be found here.

How Robots Will Do the Heavy Lifting in the Sahara and Antarctica

By Arnie Cooper and Andy Isaacson

Building in the Sahara Graham Murdoch

Already under construction, these two projects are saving humans from having to work in two of the most inhospitable environments on the planet: the Sahara Desert, and the South Pole in Antarctica.

BUILDING IN THE SAHARA

The Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing, Engineering and Automation in Stuttgart, Germany, is developing a robot to construct a 2,270-square-mile solar farm in the Sahara. The 100-ton Industrial Parallel Kinematics device (IPAnema) is similar to the Skycam that hovers above the field at NFL games: 2,000 feet of polyethylene cable strung between four mobile towers suspend the end effector, a box with jaws built for grasping solar reflectors. IPAnema will be ready for work in 2015.

End Effector: Built for grasping and lifting, the steel and aluminum end effector delicately picks up and places thousands of seven-ton, 40-foot-long solar reflectors. It then sets them down anywhere within the 26,896 square feet between the four support towers.

Winches: The IPAnema’s motor-driven winches rapidly spool and unspool eight cables that control the suspended end effector. The winches rotate the end effector on all three axes at almost 3 mph, and each cable can support nearly 10,000 pounds.

Force Sensors: At each end of the cable, attached to both the winch and the suspended end effector, are force sensors. The sensors synchronize the winch motors to within two milliseconds and track the end effector’s movement in space within millimeters.

Support Towers: The robot’s framing system—four modular 36-foot-high steel pylons—arranges itself on automated bases. The four towers create constant tension to prevent the payload from swaying, which will help secure it against accidents in high desert winds. —by Arnie Cooper

Traversing Antarctica:  Graham Murdoch

TRAVERSING ANTARCTICA

This winter the National Science Foundation and one of its contractors, Raytheon Polar Services, is shuttling fuel 1,040 miles from its coastal Antarctic base, McMurdo Station—the primary American logistical hub—to the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station. A century ago, Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen became the first man to reach the pole. He used sled dogs and skis; the NSF and Raytheon will soon use automated Caterpillar and Case tractors. The robotic vehicles will crawl across the continent at 5 to 12 mph for 24 hours a day, accomplishing in just a week and a half what took Amundsen nearly two months.

Bladders: Each tractor hauls at least ten 3,000-gallon fuel bladders and consumes nearly two of them during the 2,080-mile round trip.

Lead Vehicle: Onboard computers will determine the ideal speed and direction to maximize fuel efficiency, relaying the information to the rest of the fleet. Algorithms determine the “threat” of objects and reroute the tractors accordingly.

Twin Cameras: Positioned about a foot apart, the two cameras create stereographic imagery to distinguish between a pile of snow, a snowmobile, a person and an open crevasse. Then the cameras gauge the object or feature’s distance.

ARS-300 Radar: The vehicle uses its radar (the same kind Google has on its self-driving cars) to “see” through storms. Although the radar cannot read surface structures as accurately as the tractor’s laser scanners can, driving snow confuses the laser.

Laser Scanner: The tractor’s laser scanners fix on details in the terrain—up to 200 feet away—to create a map that is uploaded to the computer and used for navigating. The scanner also helps avoid collisions between tractors. —by Andy Isaacson

‘Open-source’ robotic surgery platform to top medical research labs

 by Biomechanism 

Robotics experts at the University of California, Santa Cruz and the University of Washington (UW) have completed a set of seven advanced robotic surgery systems for use by major medical research laboratories throughout the United States. After a round of final tests, five of the systems will be shipped to medical robotics researchers at Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University, University of Nebraska, UC Berkeley, and UCLA, while the other two systems will remain at UC Santa Cruz and UW.

Team members posed with components of the Raven II surgical robotic systems developed in the Bionics Lab at the Baskin School of Engineering. (Photo by Carolyn Lagattuta)

“We decided to follow an open-source model, because if all of these labs have a common research platform for doing robotic surgery, the whole field will be able to advance more quickly,” said Jacob Rosen, associate professor of computer engineering in the Baskin School of Engineering at UC Santa Cruz and principal investigator on the project.

Rosen and Blake Hannaford, director of the UW Biorobotics Laboratory, lead the research groups that developed the Raven II robotic surgery system and its predecessor, Raven I. A grant from the National Science Foundation funded their work to create seven identical Raven II systems. Hannaford said the systems will be shipped out from UW by the end of January. After they are delivered and installed, all seven systems will be networked together over the Internet for collaborative experiments. Continue reading below…

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Robotic surgery has the potential to enable new surgical procedures that are less invasive than existing techniques. For some procedures, such as prostate surgery, the use of surgical robots is already standard practice. In addition, telesurgery, in which the surgeon operates a robotic system from a remote location, offers the potential to provide better access to expert care in remote areas and the developing world. Having a network of laboratories working on a common platform will make it easier for researchers to share software, replicate experiments, and collaborate in other ways.

Even though it meant giving competing laboratories the tools that had taken them years to develop, Rosen and Hannaford decided to share the Raven II because it seemed like the best way to move the field forward. “These are the leading labs in the nation in the field of surgical robotics, and with everyone working on the same platform we can more easily share new developments and innovations,” Hannaford said.

According to Rosen, most research on surgical robotics in the United States has focused on developing new software for various commercially available robotic systems. “Academic researchers have had limited access to these proprietary systems. We are changing that by providing high-quality hardware developed within academia. Each lab will start with an identical, fully-operational system, but they can change the hardware and software and share new developments and algorithms, while retaining intellectual property rights for their own innovations,” Rosen said.

The Raven II includes a surgical robot with two robotic arms, a camera for viewing the operational field, and a surgeon-interface system for remote operation of the robot. The system is powerful and precise enough to support research on advanced robotic surgery techniques, including online telesurgery.

In addition to Rosen and Hannaford, UCSC postdoctoral researchers Daniel Glozman and Ji Ma, along with a group of dedicated undergraduate students working in Rosen’s Bionics Lab, played a key role in developing the Raven II. Rosen and Glozman have also developed a Raven IV surgical robotics system, which includes four robotic arms and two cameras. The system enables collaboration between two surgeons working from separate locations and connected over the Internet.

The Shape of TV to Come

Samsung's new television integrates a number of technologies that have been gathering steam in recent years.

Stephen Cass

These large, thin OLED screens can be controlled with voice and gesture controls. Credit: Samsung

While the picture quality and screen size is likely to be the most immediately striking thing about the 55-inch Super OLED TV Samsung unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week, some of the less visible technologies in the TV could prove to be more significant in the long term. The Super OLED is, like virtually all new high-televisions, a smart TV, capable of running local applications and accessing the Internet. What's new is Samsung's approach to the thorny challenge of the smart TV interface, using motion and voice control.
The interface problem arises because TV is what's been dubbed as a "lean back" experience. Most users prefer a simple remote control that allows them to turn the TV on and off, select a channel, and adjust the volume. But navigating a video streaming service, or sending a tweet, are relatively complex activities typically associated with the "lean forward" experience of computers where at least a keyboard (even if only an on-screen tablet one) is available.
One solution is to make the remote control considerably more complicated, incorporating a complete keyboard, which was the tack initially taken by Sony (among others) with its Internet TV, created in partnership with Google. But the approach failed to gain traction. Far more promising has been the idea of using gestural interfaces, which would allow users to control devices without the need for any remote control at all—for example, a user could simply sweep an arm through the air to scroll through a page of search results. The Super OLED uses a built-in camera to capture motion in the foreground to control its smart TV services, supplementing the motion controls with voice controls picked up by a pair of built-in microphones. And it doesn't seem like it'll be long before other manufacturers incorporate similar features: at its CES keynote presentation, Microsoft discussed how it intends to adapt the Kinect system originally developed for its XBox 360 game console for interactive TV applications.

Next-Generation Surveillance Robots Can Analyze Their Environment

By David Hambling 

Snakebot Courtesy Special Operations Apps

Manned surveillance missions are critical to obtaining useful intelligence. But sending a soldier into sensitive areas can often be too dangerous. Scientists are developing robots that could do the job. Last spring, the Advanced Technologies Laboratory at Lockheed Martin unveiled a prototype that uses sensors to model its environment, detect potential threats, calculate lines of sight, and locate good hiding places.

Next-generation surveillance robots will probably combine sensors similar to those on the prototype with more-powerful artificial intelligence and a stealthy body. One such device could be the snakebot, developed by a team at the Biorobotics and Biomechanics Lab at the Technion–Israel Institute of Technology. The robot could infiltrate sewage pipes, crawl under floorboards, or coil up and stand upright for a better view. It could even shed one of its segments, dropping off audio bugs or explosive warheads for assassination missions.

NATURAL MOVEMENT

The six-foot snakebot (top) consists of polymer segments connected by flexible joints and is powered by electric motors. Movement control relies on software that determines the best mode of travel—wriggling, rolling, corkscrewing—for each situation. Sidewinding is fastest but requires good traction; inching forward by undulating the body is slower but works in confined spaces; rolling may be easiest on a flat surface. The snakebot can also rise up to climb stairs and other vertical obstacles.

3-D MAPPING

The robot’s laser-radar cameras scan the environment to determine the distance to every reflecting surface in 360 degrees, generating a “point cloud” of readings. Software joins the dots, turning them into a 3-D model of the surroundings. From the model, the robot can determine a threat’s sight line, assess and navigate toward hiding spots, and steer clear of dangerously exposed areas.

SMARTER SENSORS

A set of four directional microphones enables the robot to detect approaching humans. By comparing the time that sounds reach each mic, the robot can calculate a threat’s location, bearing and speed, and use that data to determine if it needs to hide.

Electronics Makers Have Worst Labor Practices of Any Industry, Says Report

Ira Glass resurrects a debate about treatment of workers at Foxconn.

CHRISTOPHER MIMS 

Mining, textiles, retail—these are the industries that are most likely to violate worker's rights, right? Nope— turns out the electronics industry is worse, according to a recent report from Oekom, a sustainable investment research firm. (For more on that report, check out the breakdown of its findings at GreenBiz.)

The appearance of monologist / investigative reporter / anti-Apple agitator Mike Daisey on the most recent episode of This American Life is leading to a whole new wave of awareness of a stark fact of electronics manufacturing: There is no "Fair Trade" standard for our electronics, even though industry watchers have been calling for one ever since the well-publicized suicides at FoxConn, China's largest manufacturer of electronics.

If you think about it, it's mind boggling that we can buy Fair Trade coffee, tea and chocolate, "conflict-free" diamonds and clothing manufactured by companies happy to trumpet their labor practices, but no electronics manufacturer seems to have taken the slightest (public) notice of the conditions under which their goods are manufactured.

Yet exploitative labor practices and unaccountable manufacturers are exactly what we should expect, argues Richard Locke at Boston Review, because the kind of turnover consumers demand in their electronics— better, faster, newer—mandates those practices.

In response [to the average 8-month life of a cell phone] brands and even suppliers have developed practices that protect themselves, including pull-based ordering systems that signal that products should be assembled only after they are purchased at some retail outlet, just-in-time delivery of components needed to assemble the products rapidly, and "flexible" labor practices that enable factories quickly to hire and fire assembly workers in response to fluctuations in consumer demand and production orders.

But these practices place a greater burden on the workers assembling the products. In other words, our desire for the latest model creates enormous volatility in consumer markets that can only be managed through a set of business practices that inevitably leads to excess working hours, low wages, and unhealthy working conditions for millions, who are often women migrant workers.

Locke's argument is interesting, but it's not the whole story. There are other industries that are all about disposability and price—think of fashion—that have come up with ways to treat at least a subset of their workers more humanely.

It's hard not to look at the situation and wonder why companies like Apple, Samsung, HTC, Motorolla (now owned by Google) and Microsoft can't figure out a way to direct just a small portion of their margins toward making working conditions more humane. The fact that there is nothing like a Fair Trade certification standard for this industry has got to be part of the problem—if it existed, it could probably shame them into acting, just as Greenpeace's bad report card for Appleapparently inspired change at the company.

Researchers design steady-handed robot for brain surgery

 

Surgeons operate on a patient in July 2011 in Baghdad. Neurosurgeons may one day get help in operating rooms from a robot with movements 10 times steadier than the human hand to perform delicate brain surgeries, the EU said Monday.

Neurosurgeons may one day get help in operating rooms from a robot with movements 10 times steadier than the human hand to perform delicate brain surgeries, the EU said Monday.

The European Commission touted the EU-funded ROBOCAST project as a breakthrough in robotic neurosurgery that could in future help treat tumors, epilepsy, Parkinson's disease and Tourette syndrome.

Developped by British, German, Italian and Israeli researchers, the robotic hand, guided by a surgeon, has 13 types of movement compared to four available to human hands during minimally invasive surgery.

It even has "haptic feedback", or physical cues that allow surgeons to assess tissue and feel the amount of force applied during surgery, the European Commission said in reporting the EU-funded ROBOCAST project.

The robot has only been tested on dummies so far, performing keyhole neurosurgery, in which a probe enters a tiny hole in the skull to manipulate tissue or collect blood and other fluids.

"Robots can reduce surgeon's tremor tenfold, making them especially useful in protecting the delicate and important brain matter," the commission said.

The European Union, marking European Robotics Week, said it was funding a parallel project involving three robots to assist surgeons operating on patients who must stay away during neurosurgery.

The EU's executive Commission has already spent 400 million euros in around 100 robotics projects. Brussels says global demand for robot-related products was worth around 15.5 billion euros in 2010, including 3.0 billion in Europe.

(c) 2011 AFP

"Researchers design steady-handed robot for brain surgery." November 28th, 2011. http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-11-steady-handed-robot-brain-surgery.html

 

Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek

Self-Contained Soft Robot Powered By On-Board Battery

By Rebecca Boyle

Soft Robot, Rolling Robot This rolling robot is completely self-contained, unlike its tethered predecessors. via YouTube

Soft robots would be useful for a variety of things — they could grip objects with precision and sensitivity, and they could roll along more quietly than their counterparts with metal exoskeletons. Here is a new one that could do such tasks purely on its own, without any external power source or command center.

This soft robot, developed at MIT’s Distributed Robotics Lab, uses inflatable silicone actuators to push itself along. The actuators work somewhat like a flipper, pushing the robot into a forward roll. They deflate once the robot has rolled over, and the next one inflates to continue the forward motion, like inflatable cogs in a set of gears. It employs a pneumatic battery and electropermanent magnets, which only require a power input to change their states — they don’t use up any power once they are in the desired state.

The pneumatic battery uses hydrogen peroxide and a catalyst to generate gas, which inflates the silicone flaps, as explained by roboticist and blogger Travis Deyle. The benefit here is that the entire system is self-regulated, so the battery uses the minimal amount of hydrogen peroxide required, which is both efficient and safe, because there would be no excess pressure buildup. The whole system requires no external cables or tethers that could get in the way of a smooth robotic roll. Watch it move in the video below.

[via Hizook]