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Monthly Archives: July 2014

Wearable wireless goes Bluetooth Smart

IHS Wireless_Semiconductor_Shipments

Shipments this year for wireless semiconductors in health and fitness will reach a projected 61.2 million units, up 11% from 55 million in 2013, and will increase to 95.78 million units in 2018, says IHS, while shipments  of consumer health and fitness devices with integrated wireless connectivity will grow to an estimated 75.7 million units in 2018, up from 23.0 ...

Fable: The Boy Who Got The Bug

There was once a boy who was inspired to adopt a career during mountain walks. “My curiosity in physics was brought about by my uncle during various wanderings through Austrian mountains where we went for excursions at the weekends,” he says, “when you go for hours on end on these mountain walks, it gets a bit boring and my uncle ...

What is Kemet doing in this circuit? Kemit tells all.

Kemet supercapacitor balancer

Kemet has a supercapacitor balancing development kit. Supercapacitors are fascinating things and are getting better and better all the time. They need balancing when charged in series to prevent differing capacitances causing full capacitors to over-volt while other are still filling. This kind of capacitor has some ionic stuff going on inside, and they are easily ruined if their terminal ...

Supercapacitor balancing kit

Kemet supercapacitor balancer

Kemet has introduced a supercapacitor balancing development kit for its S301 family of 60mm diameter capacitors. Used in series, supercapacitors need electronics to ensure no capacitor goes over the rated voltage as the string approaches full charge – 2.7V in this case, see below. The kit includes two-stage active balancing circuits to ensure that voltage across each supercapacitor is approximately ...

Microsoft enters Sharks Cove for Intel-based driver development

Should flag this one for the record. Microsoft, and Intel and CircuitCo, have announced (for pre-order) Sharks Cove, a Windows-compatible devboard for developers to build and test drivers. See DevBoard Watch: Microsoft swims into Sharks Cove with Windows dev board. Why mention it on an Android blog? The key element is the Intel Atom Z3735G processor and Microsoft explicitly allows ...

Metal case turns Raspberry Pi B+ into a security camera

PICE.jpg

Elson Designs has experience of designing cases for the Raspberry Pi and it has now turned its attention to the new Raspberry Pi B+, designing a case for a security camera. Subject of a Kickstarter project, the PiCE+ metal case has  a number of configurations; Outdoor which will use a Gaiter to protect the Ethernet, Power and USBs. It will also come in Indoor and ...

Freescale aims accelerometer at preventive maintenance

Freescale FXLN8361 accelerometer break-out board - 427

Accelerometers intended for phones will not always hit the spot in industrial sensing, claimed Freescale at the launch of a family of them aimed at industrial preventive maintenance. Called FXLN83xxQ, the family is “designed to capture acceleration information often missed by less accurate sensors commonly deployed in consumer products such as smartphones and exercise activity monitors, the new device enables ...