Renesas has added a 24bit ΣΔ (sigma-delta) ADC to a 48 MHz Arm Cortex-M23 microprocessor, as well as dual-bank code flash for over-the-air firmware updates. “RA2A2 devices offer multiple power structures and voltage detection hardware to realise energy-efficient operation as low as 100µA/MHz in active mode, and 0.40µA in software stand-by mode,” according to the company. “An independent power supply ...
Software designed to detect child abuse images on smartphones, which could be mandated by governments in some counties, can be covertly repurposed to intrude on personal privacy, according to research at Imperial college. ‘Client-side scanning’ (CSS) is an image analysis technique based on ‘perceptual hashing’, and is mooted as a way to get around the legitimate problem of criminals hiding ...
A smart speaker can be used to locate you within a room, with no prior knowledge of room shape, according to a University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign research team. It also, at lease partially, maps the room. It uses the microphone array in the speaker, an Alexa in this case, to provide data for an algorithm that identifies direct and ...
An exposé of the human labour, data privacy and environmental impacts of a smart speaker wins design award.
University researchers have remotely gained control of a home smart speaker using a laser. The hack worked at a range of 110m, and would have been further if the team had had more space. All that was needed was a 5mW laser (little more than pointer-power) and a telescope (actually a telephoto lens). 60mW was sufficient to affect phones and tablets. ...
Telensa Planet (stylised PLANet), an intelligent street lighting system, has been selected by Wiltshire county council to be expanded with an additional 7,000 lights across the county. The established deployment controls 35,000 lights, and paid for itself in six years through reduced energy and maintenance costs, Telensa says. The controls are also being upgraded as part of a broader LED ...
Aiming at improved dog food,Cambridge Design Partnership has created a smart pill for dogs that both senses and samples. Mars is the customer, and trails were at the Waltham Centre for Pet Nutrition in Melton Mowbray. “It was certainly an unusual request and a major challenge,” says Will Bradley, who led the project for CDP. “Mars Petcare wanted to find out ...
Silicon Labs is aiming at switching industrial loads with a family of quad 24V 700mA isolated 145mΩ switches for resistive or inductive loads – solenoids, relays or lamps, for example, in programmable logic controllers (PLCs). “The switches are capable of providing up to 0.5A of IEC61131-2 compliant continuous current in a quad channel configuration,” said the firm. “Each switch has ...
Causing a stir, and winning an innovation award, at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas is the thing dubbed the ‘smart plank of wood’. Behind Mui, as it is actually called, is Kyoto-based Nissha. “Mui is a wooden device with built-in touch sensor and wireless sensor developed by Nissha,” said the firm. “By connecting Mui to the Internet in ...
The Bluetooth SIG and Lancaster University have teamed up to create a custom Bluetooth LE profile for the BBC’s micro:bit educational microcontroller board. Martin Woolley, programme manager at Bluetooth SIG, created the profile and Dr Joe Finney coded it, along with the rest of micro:bit’s runtime, with his team at Lancaster. Although it is their day job, micro:bit has become ...
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