Model-driven HMI development

Tilcon and Telelogic have collaborated to integrate Tilcon's GUI development software with Telelogic's model-driven development environment. The combination aims to help embedded developers design, validate, test, and target advanced 2D/3D HMIs (human-machine interfaces) across multiple platforms, including Windows CE and Windows XP Embedded, the companies said.

Tilcon describes its Interface Development Suite (IDS) as a "complete user interface infrastructure allowing developers to rapidly create custom, high quality user interfaces, instrument clusters, and complex visualization systems." According to the company, IDS is incorporates an intelligent, scalable "Embedded Vector Engine" (EVE) that provides display and user interaction functions for use by client applications. The resulting screens run unchanged on all Tilcon-supported operating systems, including Windows CE, Windows XP, Linux, VxWorks, and QNX, the company claims.

Telelogic's product, Rhapsody, is a Model Driven Development (MDD) environment based on the OMG's (Object Modeling Group) UML 2.1 and System Modeling Language (SysML). According to Telelogic, Rhapsody is optimized for use in real-time and embedded software development, and allows both function-oriented and object-oriented design techniques to co-exist in one environment.

The combination of IDS and Rhapsody results an easy-to-use MDD environment for GUI development, according to the companies. The toolset targets at high-performance automotive telematics systems and advanced instrument clusters, as well as defense and commercial vehicle dashboard displays, consumer products, high-end industrial control and medical monitoring systems, the companies said.

The integration of the two products appears to be immediately available.

Microsoft's Surface Computing

Microsoft Surface represents a fundamental change in the way we interact with digital content.
With Surface, we can actually grab data with our hands, and move information between objects with natural gestures and touch.
Surface features a 30-inch tabletop display whose unique abilities allow for several people to work independently or simultaneously. All without using mouse or a keyboard.

Microsoft has been developing the first completely new computing platform since the PC — a project that was given the internal code name Milan. This past March, when the project was still operating on the down low.

The product behind the Milan project is called the Microsoft Surface, and the company's unofficial Surface showman is Jeff Gattis.

Till now one of consumer pain points is the frustrating mess of cables, drivers and protocols that people must use to link their peripheral devices to their personal computers. Surface computer has no cables or external USB ports for plugging in peripherals. For that matter, it has no keyboard, no mouse, no trackball — no obvious point of interaction except its screen.

We can take a digital camera and placed it on the Surface. Instantly, digital pictures will be spilled out onto the tabletop. We can touch and drag each picture, it followed our fingers around the screen.

Using two fingers, we can pull the corners of a photo and stretched it to a new size. Then, we can put a cellphone on the surface and drag several photos to it — just like that, the pictures will be uploaded to the phone. One can drag and drop virtual

The mood player

Inventors: Lee; Peter S.; (Calabasas Park, CA), THE WALT DISNEY COMPANY;C/O
GREENBERG TRAURIG LLP
United States Patent Application : 20060005226
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Walt Disney would surely be pleased with some of the new ideas being patented by Disney's Californian headquarters.

Alongside digital downloads for fast food restaurants, the company has devised a media player that selects songs based on its owner's latest mood.

A system for synchronizing a portable media player for downloading of content and playing the downloaded content on the player including profile synchronizing means associated with the player for synchronizing content downloaded to player related to the profile of the user of the player.

The device has wrist sensors that measure body temperature, perspiration and pulse rate. It uses these measurements to build a profile of what music or video the owner plays when they are hot, cold, dry or sweaty, and when their pulse is racing or slow.

The device then comes up with suggestion to fit each and every profile, either using songs or videos in its library or downloading something new that should be suitable.

If the owner rejects the player's selection it learns and refines the profile. So, over time the player should get better and better at matching body measurements with the owner's moods.

The patent suggests that the device could display animated cartoons when the owner is particularly happy. Walt would surely be proud.

"E-Paper" - When will it be real?

Source: E-computing

I read all kinds of magazines, newspapers, and books, all in paper format. I just can’t break away to an all electronic format. I sit in front of a computer most of the day and the last thing I want to do is sit down in my recliner and read from computer screens. I am a huge fan of digital media distribution but the medium for reading is still not there.

Recent announcements at the Society for Information Display conference in May start to give me some hope that someday soon we will see a medium that does a great job of emulating paper. I still like the convenience of paper. Something that I can take anywhere, rip out pages, and mark up text all without feeling like my eyeballs are going to get burned out as I read away. I will gladly give up the clutter of stacks of magazines and the environmental impact of paper if an electronic technology emerges that truly is better.

E Ink Corporation has teamed up with many display companies such as Sony and LG.Philips LCD to get some interesting electronic books on the market but they still lack key features. It will be great when someone invents a device that is no larger than a 64 page magazine, color, easy on the eyes, and wirelessly connected so that I can access and store all my subscriptions. I could mark up pages, earmark them, send copies to friends and associates, and bookmark them for later reference.

For now I’m going to keep my paper subscriptions, but I would love to see an electronic device that could replace them!

Edible RADIO (Digestible RFID)

What is not possible ?! Do you want to know about "System to monitor the ingestion of medicines" ?

Inventors keep coming up with new ways to exploit RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tags. The latest brainwave, from Kodak, is to use them to probe a person's digestive system.

This is a system for monitoring ingestion of medicine comprises forming a digestible radio frequency identification (RFID) tag. The RFID tag is attached to the medicine. The RFID tag and medicine are ingested. A signal from the RFID tag is monitored.

RFID tags are tiny radio chips that resonate with a single echo when hit with a radio trigger. Kodak’s digestible tags are harmless and intentionally fragile. The tags would be covered with soft gelatin that takes a while to dissolve in the stomach. After swallowing a tag a patient need only sit next to a radio source and receiver !!.

They stop working when exposed to gastric acid for a specific period of time, providing a subtle way to monitor a patient's digestive tract.

Kodak says that similar radio tags could also be embedded in an artificial knee or hip joint in such a way that they disintegrate as the joint does, warning of the need for more surgery. Attaching tags to ordinary pills could also help nurses confirm that a patient has really taken their medicine as ordered.