Innovative energy sources

With today's increasing mobile multimedia devices in our everyday life and the need for mobile energy sources is growing. With innovative energy sources, the growing future demand should be solved.

The trend is towards mobile devices that become lighter and smaller, but their need for power increases. As a result, the demand for high capacity mobile energy sources increase. Alternative energy sources to today's batteries are on the way to the market. Further development of the battery technology should bring more power, longer life cycles and shorter charging times by a smaller volume.

Fuel cell

Some big technology companies perform intense research work for the use of fuel cells as energy supply of small electrical appliances such as laptops, mobile phones and MP3 players. Advantages are the high energy capacity compared with today's batteries, and the rapid refilling of the tanks to the long recharging time of the batteries.

fuel cell from a cell phone gets refilled

SCiB (Super-Charge-ion-Battery)
In March 2008 Toshiba will launch a battery which reloads within 5 minutes 90% of its capacity and loses only 10% of their capacity after 3000 charging cycles. In future mobile multimedia devices could be completely independent from permanent power sources because they could get recharged quickly at a specific energy station.

SCiB (Super-Charge-ion-Battery) by Toshiba

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Novel remote control concepts

In future the remote control could loose its conventional look - a rectangular block with buttons or touch screens. New approaches subject intuitive controls and novel design language.

History of the remote control

The invention of the remote control goes back to the 1950s. In 1956 the first wireless ultrasonic remote control was on the market. Today's remote controls are primarily based on the infrared and radio-transmission technology. But the basic shape of the remote control remained since its invention virtually unchanged.

the Space Command by Zenith from 1956

There are, however, in addition to the development of the "classical" approach, new concepts for the design of remote controls. Some are now presented here.

An apple as a remote control
According to the study by Jason Roebuck, the remote control could get the shape of apple. The control is done primarily done through motion gestures. A rotating movement should tune the volume of a TV, for example.

the apple remote control by Jason Roebuck

In addition, the study design intends that any person in a household has its own remote control, each adapted to individual needs. The matching "fruit bowl" for the apples will also act as a charging station.

the apples in their charging station

A cube as a remote control
A very similar approach was presented early 2007 by Telekom Austria in cooperation with Austria Research Centers. As control element a cube without any keys is used. By turning, tilting or shaking all common control signals are transmitted to a TV. When the cube is placed in the holder, the TV is on standby.

the Cube by Telekom Austria

A porcelain bowl as a remote control
The study of Yuta Watanabe doesn’t forego on buttons, but the form and material is novel. With the use of ceramics a high quality and fragile material was chosen deliberately to ad a higher value to the remote control. Beyond that the rounded shape makes the remote control to a subject of decoration.

porcelain bowl remote control by Yuta Watanabe

A bracelet as a remote control
Chloe Fung designed a remote control specifically for women. .She built the control of the so-called Orbit Remote in a bracelet.

the Orbit Remote by Chloe Fung

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360° display - digital advertising pillar

A digital advertising pillar comes from the German company KinotonPotential applications of the display should be found in the digital signage field in public areas.

Technology
The Litefast display consists of a glass cylinder and four aluminium bars with 3 LED strips in the colours red, green and blue. The aluminium bars with the LEDs on them rotate in this inner cylinder with a speed that allows them to be not seen by the human eye. The LEDs are controlled to light up at the same point all the time. This allows a display with about 16 million colours.

Construction of a Litefast displays

Advantages compared to flat displays are energy savings, as only twelve LED strips are used. 189 inch screens at small stand space are possible. With the transparency interesting visual effects are possible.

Critical issues
The viewer watches the cylinder with a frontal view. He sees a rectangle on which sides the horizontal pixels accumulate and so the image is distorted. Because of this more than a half of the screen is useless to the spectator. Consistently high luminosity with low power consumption because of the few LEDs is an argument, but I suspect that for the rotation a lot of energy is needed.

Litefast in use (youtube video)

Application scenarios
The display could be used in railway stations, airports, service companies, adventure and theme parks, museums and exhibitions, retail, cinema and theatre, and in the hospitality industry. In my opinion, the main application will take part at trade fairs and exhibitions. Here the unusual shape of the display will bring a lot of attention.

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Tactile touch screen by Nokia

Nokia presented the so-called Haptikos system, the first tactile touch screen. The haptic feedback on this touch screen supposed to be quite similar to a normal keyboard.

The technology behind the system is quite simple. There are two piezoelectric sensor plates arranged behind the display. The display itself is additionally equipped with a free movement of 0.1 mm. The fine-tuning of the system proved to be the largest challenge, as it was the feeling of a real key stroke to be exactly reconstructed.

the Haptikos system on a Nokia N770 internet tablet

A journalist from the Red Ferret Journal was able to get the hand on the system installed on a Nokia N770 internet tablet. He was very impressed by the effect. The feeling on the touch screen is indeed like on a real keyboard.
Nokia plans to introduce the tactile touch screens with its new S60 series in the year 2008.

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