Philips is using LED lighting to help supermarket customers find products

 

The app-based system determines the shopper's location via the flickering of the overhead lights.

 

Wondering where your local supermarket keeps its whole wheat flour? Soon, an app on your smartphone may be able to guide you to it – with a little help from the store's overhead LED lights, and technology developed by Philips.

The system incorporates LED bulbs that are installed in the existing overhead fixtures. Depending on the specific fixture in which it's placed, each of those bulbs will flicker at a different distinct rate. Although that flickering is too rapid to be detected by the human eye, it can be detected by the camera of a phone running the app.

When a shopper wants to find a product, the app starts by ascertaining the person's location within the store, based on the flickering "signature" of the fixture immediately overhead. It then accesses a map of the store, and proceeds to guide the user from their current location to that of the item.

Because the app can tell where the shopper is at all times, it will also periodically present them with electronic coupons or other information that applies to products that they're near – a feature which could be useful, annoying, or perhaps both. Shoppers can additionally access recipes in the app, then get the ingredients using as efficient a route through the store as possible.

Philips is currently testing the system at several supermarkets. Similar technology has been explored by other groups, including a team from Pennsylvania State University and Hallym University in South Korea.

Source: Philips via IEEE Spectrum

K-Glass smart glasses mimic the human brain to improve energy efficiency

 

By Nick Lavars February 19, 2014

In basing the artificial neural network on the brain's central nervous system, the team says it was able to compartmentalize the processing of data, resulting in less congestion and significantly improved energy efficiency

It took a heavyweight like Google to bring the notion of head-mounted devices to the mainstream, but other developers are also testing the waters and pushing the boundaries of what's possible to achieve in the smart glasses space. Exhibit A is K-Glass, a wearable, hands-free display developed by researchers at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST).

Much like its counterparts, K-Glass is designed to offer users an everyday augmented reality (AR) experience. According to the developers, users will be able to walk up to a restaurant and have its name, menu, available tables and a 3D image of different food displayed in front of their eyes.

A point of difference that could distinguish the K-Glass technology from other head-mounted displays, and one emphasized by the researchers, is the approach used to generate the augmented reality experience. Rather than using methods such as algorithms, facial recognition, motion tracking, barcodes and QR codes to establish and deliver a virtual reality like other head-mounted displays, K-Glass is designed to replicate the process our brains use to establish our surroundings.

This all revolves around an AR processor based on the Visual Attention Model (VAM), which reproduces the ability of the human brain to categorize relevant and irrelevant visual data.

When we process visual data we use sets of neurons that, though connected, work independently on different stages of the decision making. One set of neurons completes part of the process and relays the information onto a the next set, before ultimately a set of decider neurons determine what data is required and what can be done away with.

In basing the artificial neural network on the brain's central nervous system, the team says it was able to compartmentalize the processing of data, resulting in less congestion and significantly improved energy efficiency. According to its creators, K-Glass can deliver 1.22 TOPS (tera-operations per second) while running at 250 MHz, using 778 mW powered by a 1.2V supply. The team says this equates to a 76 percent improvement on power consumption of similar devices.

"Our processor can work for long hours without sacrificing K-Glass's high performance, an ideal mobile gadget or wearable computer, which users can wear for almost the whole day," says Hoi-Jun Yoo, Professor of Electrical Engineering at KAIST.

The team presented its research this month at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) in San Francisco, California.

Um milhão de bebês morrem a cada ano nas primeiras 24 horas de vida

 

Um milhão de bebês morrem a cada ano antes das primeiras 24 horas de vida, afirmou nesta terça-feira a organização Save the Children, que considera essencial o papel das parteiras para reduzir este número.

Embora a mortalidade infantil antes dos cinco anos tenha caído à metade desde 1990 (6,6 milhões, contra 12,6 milhões), a ONG lamenta a "pouca atenção prestada à luta contra os riscos mortais que os neonatos enfrentam quando são mais vulneráveis: no nascimento e no primeiro mês de sua vida".

Segundo o relatório, 2,9 milhões de bebês morreram nos 28 dias que se seguiram ao seu nascimento em 2012, dos quais 1 milhão não viveu mais de 24 horas.

Estas mortes se deveram, sobretudo, aos nascimentos prematuros, às complicações no parto e às infecções, segundo a ONG, que estima que cerca de metade das mortes poderiam ter sido evitadas se cada mãe e recém-nascido tivessem tido acesso a atendimento qualificado.

Dos seis países latino-americanos mencionados no estudo, o Haiti é onde um recém-nascido corre mais risco de morrer, seguido por Bolívia, Guatemala, Brasil, Peru e México.

"Esta situação deplorável é inaceitável", afirma a organização, notando que, "em muitos casos, intervenções menores, mas cruciais podem salvar vidas em risco".

A Save The Children estima que 40 milhões de mulheres dão à luz a cada ano no mundo "sem a ajuda de uma parteira ou agente de saúde formado e equipado para salvar a vida da criança e da mãe".

A organização fez um apelo aos governos, para que garantam que "antes de 2025 agentes de saúde formados e equipados ajudem em cada parto".

"Se não começarmos a agir, urgentemente, contra a mortalidade dos neonatos, corremos seriamente o risco de frear o progresso na redução da mortalidade infantil e de não cumprir com nosso objetivo: ser a geração que acaba com as mortes evitáveis de crianças", advertiu o relatório.