Monitoring

You don’t need to be an expert in occupational safety to know that worker fatigue is one of the leading causes of workplace accidents – this particularly applies to people who operate heavy machinery or drive for a living. While it would be great if all employees simply took a break when fatigue started setting in, it can sometimes be difficult for people to tell just how tired they really are. That, or they decide that they just want to push through and get the job done, drowsiness be damned. A relatively new invention from Australia’s EdanSafe, however, takes the guesswork out of the picture. It’s called the SmartCap, and it measures employee fatigue in real time by monitoring its wearer’s brain waves. Read More

BabyPing recently announced the arrival of its new high security Wi-Fi baby monitoring system. The product will allow parents to hear and view their baby utilizing an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch. The system also features double-layer security that alerts parents if their baby cries, if the Wi-Fi connection drops out or if their iOS device is out of range. Read More

In the early 1900’s, Birmigham’s Oliver Lucas developed a steering wheel fitted with an electric car horn that quickly became an industry standard. For many years the horn remained the only button found on vehicle steering wheels, but nowadays they are covered with a multitude of buttons for controlling everything from the vehicle’s sound and climate control systems to on board computer functions and a connected smartphone. Researchers from Germany's Technische Universitaet Muenchen, working in collaboration with BMW, have now extended the function of the humble steering wheel even further with the development of a sensor system integrated into the steering wheel that can give the driver a quick health check while driving. Read More

Jawbone has expanded its product offerings beyond Bluetooth headsets and portable speakers with the release of UP - a stylish, wrist-worn monitor that tracks your activity, sleep and nutrition with the aim of inspiring you to make healthier lifestyle choices. Read More

Realizing that the huge demand for parental monitoring programs for computers could also apply to phones, Dublin-based mobile web service company Associate Mobile has developed MobileMinder - a smartphone application running on a secure and encrypted network that allows parents to monitor their child's location, contacts, call history, photos, and web use. Read More

When the Air France Concorde Flight 4590 was taking off from Charles de Gaulle International Airport in July of 2000, it ran over a piece of debris that had been left on the runway by another plane. That incident caused the tire to rupture, sending pieces of itself flying into the underside of the Concorde. This in turn caused a fuel tank to rupture, the escaping fuel to catch fire, and ultimately led to the crashing of the airliner ... If there’s one thing that this event proved, it’s that debris on the runway can be dangerous. While human crews do already manually check for such debris, German scientists have created an automated system that they claim should do a better job. Read More

Not to be confused with the bizarre robotic tongue prototype, “electronic tongues” have been in use for the past several years, for assessing the content of various foods and beverages – and no, unfortunately they don’t look like actual tongues. While past examples have been used for purposes such as identifying the vintage and grape variety of wines, researchers from Spain’s Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV) have recently developed one that analyzes the content of antioxidant powder, along with fruit and fruit products. Read More

This Sunday (April 17th, 2011), a team of four army officers from Swanton Morley, UK, will set off on a 3,100-mile (4,999-km) rowing expedition from Australia to the island of Mauritius, located east of Madagascar. They hope to raise GBP 100,000 (US$163,236) for charity as they row in two-hour shifts, 24 hours a day, for – hopefully – somewhere under 68 days. Accompanying them on their trip, however, will be some newly-developed miniaturized sensors, which will be gathering oceanographic data along the way. Read More

Knee injuries are one of the most common injuries that can befall sportspeople or those that simply enjoy an active lifestyle. Such injuries can lay up patients for weeks while they wait for the joints to regain their full function. Although the time it takes for the knee to heal is directly related to how well it responds to the chosen treatment, it can be difficult for an orthopedic doctor to evaluate the healing process and for the patients themselves to know what progress they are making. Researchers have now developed a new type of bandage that features integrated sensors to monitor a knee's range of movement over time to let patients know how they are progressing and let doctors know it they need to adapt the treatment. Read More