Christophe Arviset, ESA Gaia and Euclid Missions Online Data Sharing

Posted by – May 9, 2017

Christophe Arviset is the Head of the Data and Engineering Division at ESA’s European Space Astronomy Centre (ESAC). The European Space Agency’s (ESA) current mission Gaia and upcoming one Euclid will generate massive amounts of astronomical data to be made freely available on-line through powerful data management systems. This big data era brings a change of paradigm and associated big challenges for building these missions’ archives. The current use case of “bring the data to the user” is being replaced by the new concept of “bring the user to the data”. This new generation of science archives is transforming into science exploitation and collaborative platforms, where the users can send her/his code to the data, run it on computing and storage services provided directly by the archive (where the data reside), and easily share all this with other scientists they’re collaborating with.

You can watch Christophe Arviset’s keynote at Linaro Connect here:

ARM mbed OS 5.4 with med Cloud device management, bootloader and filesystem infrastructure

Posted by – May 9, 2017

The mbed OS 5.4 release incorporates functionality to prepare for mbed Cloud device management services including bootloader and filesystem infrastructure and the certified Thread 1.1 stack for developers with target platform support up to 74 targets. Since there’s been releases up to mbed OS 5.4.4 you can read more about it here.

Ohmatex Smart Clothing with NIRS (Near Infra-Red) and EMG sensors for ESA

Posted by – May 9, 2017

Ohmatex of Denmark is an expert in smart textile technology developing products and solutions for integrating electronics into textile. Ohmatex currently has a contract with the European Space Agency (ESA) to develop a garment with NIRS (Near Infra-Red) and EMG sensors to monitor leg muscle activity during astronaut training. Filmed at the IDTechEx show!

Smart Textiles at the North Carolina State University

Posted by – May 9, 2017

Students at the North Carolina State University work on smart clothing, designing interesting dresses, smart clothes, for it to be useful and look good.

Flex (Flextronics) Flexible electronics, wearables, augmented reality


Flex (formerly known as Flextronics) is the world’s second largest global electronics manufacturing services (EMS), original design manufacturer (ODM) company by revenue, after Foxconn to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). Headquartered in Singapore and has manufacturing operations in over 40 countries, totaling approximately 200,000 employees.

TSCH (time synchronized channel hopping) by Dust Networks of Linear Technology

Posted by – May 9, 2017

Dust Networks of Linear Technology pioneered time synchronized channel hopping TSCH, in which all motes in the network are synchronized to within a few microseconds. Filmed at the IDTechEx show!

Highly conductive textiles for wearables by the Korea Institute of Material Science

Posted by – May 9, 2017

KIMS project group consisting of Korea Institute of Materials Science (KIMS), Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials (KIMM), Jinwoo Textile Co. Ltd., and Alink Co. Ltd. is established for developing industrial production systems of highly conductive textiles and thin films which are applicable to flexible and wearable electronics. Filmed at the IDTechEx show.

Fairphone2 with Ubuntu Touch ported by UBPorts

Posted by – May 8, 2017

UBports has ported Ubuntu Touch to the Fairphone 2 smartphone. The Fairphone 2 is designed to be ethical, repairable, upgradeable, and controlled by the user. The Fairphone 2 has a Snapdragon 801 processor, 2mp front camera, 8mp back camera, 5″ 1080p display, 32GB of storage, 2gb of ram, MicroSD and Micro-USB.

Sentio Superbook Lapdock using DisplayLink

Posted by – May 8, 2017

Sentio is the new company name making Andromium OS “Android Continuum” and their SuperBook Lapdock project that has collected $2.9 Million on Kickstarter. This DisplayLink Powered Lapdock is a laptop dock that can connect to any Android phone that has USB OTG, it can connect over USB Type C or Micro USB and offers a desktop experience with trackpad and Keyboard. The lapdock relies on Andromium OS to provide this desktop experience. It is not confirmed yet (as far as I know) how many apps will be supported to run as multi-window, they are not changing the Android firmware, they run Andromium OS as just an app. The display is 11.6″ (HD or FullHD) and offers 8 hours of battery life. The Price is to be $100 dollars and up after they start shipping to their backers on Kickstarter.

GPU for ARM Cortex-M, Think Silicon NEMA, 0.1mm2 @ 28nm

Posted by – May 8, 2017

Think Silicon NEMA GPU Series and NEMA dc are claimed to be the world’s smallest 2D/2.5D/3D GPU and display controller. They have been specifically designed for area constrained wearable devices, embedded systems and IoT platforms where power consumption and battery life is crucial while still maintaining vibrant graphics and fluid smartphone performance-like user interface performance. The NEMA GPU Series is what Think Silicon claims to be the only GPU which works with SoCs sporting a 32-bit MCU such as the ARM Cortex-M by utilizing the MCU by just 3-4%. Think Silicon’s GPU for Embedded silicon footprint can be of 0.1mm2 @ 28nm, has leakage power GPU consumption of 0.07mW. Implementing Think Silicon’s patented compression technologies (TSFBc and TSTXc) limits memory power consumption to just 0.03mW (in DDR-less systems). With Think Silicon’s proprietary graphics API NEMA|GFX and the GUI Developer Toolkit NEMA|GUI, developers can use these tools provided by Think Silicon to create their individual Graphical User Interface in a fraction of time. Tools and the GPU Bitstream (NEMA|Bits) are available for free to download at http://think-silicon.com

Pertie Gligo E Ink Smartwatch

Posted by – May 8, 2017

The Gligo watch two is a E Ink smartwatch. The E Ink display is segmented and there are analog hands for telling time. The smartwatch can provide notifications, time and heart rate. The e-ink smartwatch is available in a wide array of styles. The price is $50-60 in bulk.

Maxustech Welle: Ultrasound Touch and Gestures onto any surface

Posted by – May 8, 2017

Maxustech presents Welle that uses Ultrasounds to enable a pressue sensitive touch surface on any table or wall for interacting with a user interface. This touch surface uses ultrasound technology to track your motions. The touch surface can be used for remotely controlling devices such as IoT. Maxus Welle is successfully being crowdfunded on Kickstarter

Kid-sized robots by Transcorp for shopping malls

Posted by – May 8, 2017

Transcorp robots are advanced voice controlled robots. The Transcorp UU robot is capable of talking, dancing, identifying objects, avoiding obstacles, moving on its wheels and making facial expressions. The UU features D smart scene map generation system, smart deep learning engine, robotic situational awareness system, and smart digital programming.

Inkwell Smart Doorbell using HiSilicon Hi3518E


The Inkwell Doorbell is a wireless doorbell that will call you with a video call when the doorbell is wrung. You can answer or reject the call or take a picture of the people ringing the doorbell. The battery last 6 months. The doorbell connects via wifi. The camera of the doorbell is a 720p camera. Inkwell also makes a motion sensing camera that can substitute doorbell.

IdeeBank Smart Taillight, Microphone, Earbuds, Dog Collar, 360 Camera, LED Lights and Toothbrush

Posted by – May 8, 2017

IdeeBank smart taillights are bicycle taillights that light when cars come near them. These taillights can light up in multiple colors and multiple combinations with full RGB lighting. The smart taillight will detect whether it is dark or sunny out with a light sensor. The smart taillight is waterproof and usb rechargable. The taillight can be controlled using an Android or iOS app. The price is $25.
The Ideebank smart microphone connects with your smartphone using bluetooth and amplifies the user’s voice.
Ideebank earbuds are wireless and bluetooth connected similar to airpods.
Ideebank Dog collars track the state of the dog, its activities such as walking or sleeping.
Ideebank makes a variety of other products such as a drone, smartphone gun, bluetooth led lights and electric toothbrush for $26.

Leica 12-60mm on Panasonic GH5 (4K50p sample)

Posted by – May 6, 2017

Here’s a new sample I filmed using the Panasonic GH5 ($1998 body-only) with the 12-60 Leica Lens ($998) with Kevin Walker of Panasonic UK featuring some of the top lenses that are available for the Panasonic GH5 among many other lens choices that are available for the micro four thirds standard. These include the new 8-18mm wide angle lens ($1099) that I also filmed a sample and Interview with here, the 42.5mm Leica f1.2 Nocticron lens ($1398) which features advanced sharpness and bokeh for amazing photography, portraits or no-so-wide film making, the Leica 12-60mm (which is the one I film this sample with) and the Lumix 12-35 mark2 lens ($998 http://amzn.to/2pSLxbQ), the last two are ones that feature Panasonic’s Dual IS 2 image stabilization where the sensor and the lens work together for maximum stability for video and photography. The 42.5mm does feature Dual IS 1 which is perhaps not as advanced as the new Dual IS 2, lacking some certain chip or hardware features that enables Dual IS 2. You can download the original 150mbit/s 4K50p camera video file on Google Drive: (I’ll add the Google Drive link here within a few hours as I get the 5GB file uploaded, check back)

Leica 8-18mm on Panasonic GH5 (4K50p sample)

Posted by – May 6, 2017

Sample video at 4K50p filmed using the new Panasonic GH5 ($1998 body-only) with the Leica DG Vario-Elmarit 8-18mm f/2.8-4 ASPH wide-angle lens ($1099), capturing the sound using my new Saramonic UWMIC9 dual UHF wireless lavs to single receiver (first time I use it, hopefully the sound levels are ok) ($399). Using Panasonic GH5’s intelligent auto mode, I am trying to show off some of the quality of this wide angle lens for my style of handheld video-blogging, filming at the Wex Photographic London Lens Show with Kevin Walker of Panasonic UK. Last month, I also filmed with him using the GH5 and the Leica 12-60mm at the Photography Show and I also just filmed a new video with him using the 12-60 Leica lens which I will upload and publish later today, check back for that. This 8-18mm lens doesn’t have Dual IS 2 in-lens image stabilization but the Panasonic GH5 has such good in-sensor stabilization that it can stabilize any lens that you put on it and this angle being so wide, it might need in-lens stabilization to look stable when used for video. The wide angle is useful for wide angle photography for architecture, landscapes, streets, groups of people and more. According to Panasonic, the Leica 8-18mm lens uses a series of low dispersion and aspherical elements to realize sharp and clear imagery with controlled fringing and aberrations, and a Nano Surface Coating also helps to minimize flare and ghosting for increased contrast and color accuracy. The durable metal lens body is splash, dust, and freezeproof and it has their fast 240fps autofocus drive for a hopefully good auto-focus performance. You can download the original 150mbit/s 4K50p camera video file on Google Drive: (I’ll add the Google Drive link here within a few hours as I get the 13.9GB file uploaded, check back)

Cavium ARM Servers M-CORD with NFV, SDN and MEC

Posted by – May 4, 2017

Cavium shows a rack of ThunderX ARMv8 servers running the complete virtualized mobile network with Multi-access Edge services live demo. These servers have 96 64-bit ARM cores in each server in dual socket configuration. ARM servers provide much better ecosystems in terms of diversified hardware solutions with scalable and great TCO and performance all running on industry standard kernel distros and virtualization software platforms.

Glance Clock Connected Smart Clock

Posted by – May 3, 2017

Glance Clock is a bluetooth connected digital display clock that can display information from your smartphone. The glance clock can display incoming calls, notifications, weather, appointments or your calender for the day. The Glance clock can also act as a normal clock. Glance clock can also seemlessly sync with Amazon Alexa. The price of Glance Clock is around $150.

$39 Brainpower Drones

Posted by – May 3, 2017

Brainpower of the toy manufacturing city of Shantou China makes a series of remote controlled foldable drones. The remote controls resemble a game controller can attach to a smartphone. Brainpower drones include optical avoidance using infrared. Brainpower drones also include cameras and Gimball systems. The prices for the drones is about $39 for 800 – 1000 pieces moq.