As simple as TruFocals are to use, their technology is very sophisticated.
Each "lens" is actually a set of two lenses, one flexible and one firm. The flexible lens (near the eye) has a transparent distensible membrane attached to a clear rigid surface. The pocket between them holds a small quantity of crystal clear fluid. As you move the slider on the bridge, it pushes the fluid and alters the shape of the flexible lens. Changing the shape changes the correction. This mimics the way the lenses in your eyes used to perform when you were younger.
This allows you to choose the exact correction that works best for you at any distance and under any lighting conditions. The result: clear, undistorted vision over a wide field of view: no zones, no lines.
A photo interrupter sensor is composed of an infrared emitter on one upright and a shielded infrared detector on the other. By emitting a beam of infrared light from one upright to the other, the sensor can detect when an object passes between the uprights, breaking the beam. Used for many applications including optical limit switches, pellet dispensing, general object detection, etc.(Sparkfun.com)
I recently went through my box of junk and found a handful of photo interrupters and wanted to finally use these in a project. Problem one, no datasheet, two no idea of a pinout, three do they even work.
Sharp to Introduce the Industry's Smallest Photointerrupter
2010/09/24
- Will Contribute to Space-Saving Designs and Higher Performance in Electronic Equipment -
September 24, 2010 -- Sharp Corporation has developed and will introduce the industry's smallest(*1) photointerrupter(*2), the GP1S396HCPSF, measuring just 2.26 x 1.4 x 1.6 H mm.
Subminiature photointerrupters are used to control the optical zoom of digital cameras, and to track the position of the lens for controlling the optical pick-up unit in Blu-ray Disc recorders, and manufacturers are demanding smaller sizes and improved detection performance in these devices.
The GP1S396HCPSF features the industry's smallest package size thanks to thin-wall molding technology developed over long years of experience in the electronic device field, and will contribute to making electronic equipment slimmer and more compact based on space-saving designs. In addition, the detection area has been reduced by achieving a slit width(*3) of 0.12 mm, the industry's narrowest (approximately 40% smaller than the predecessor model[*4]), thereby improving detection accuracy. Also, enlarging the gap between the emitter and receiver, which represents a trade-off with making the device more compact, to 1.2 mm (predecessor model[*4]: 1.0 mm) provides greater flexibility in terms of the target objects that can pass between the emitter and receiver.
[Major Features]
1. Industry's smallest package size (2.26 x 1.4 x 1.6 H mm).
2. Industry's narrowest slit width of 0.12 mm provides high detection accuracy (approx. 40% smaller than predecessor model).
3. Gap between emitter and receiver is enlarged to 1.2 mm (predecessor model: 1.0 mm), providing greater flexibility in terms of the target objects that can be detected.
(*1) For subminiature photointerrupters, as of September 24, 2010. Based on Sharp research.
(*2) An optical sensor that integrates an infrared light emitter and receiver in a single unit. The receiver detects the fact that a target object has blocked light from the emitter.
(*3) Width of the long, narrow opening for light made in the receiver to improve accuracy in detecting the presence of an object.
(*4) Sharp's predecessor model: GP1S296HCPSF.
For more information, please visit http://sharp-world.com/corporate/news/100924.html
A sophisticated computer virus, called Stuxnet, has attacked widely used industrial control systems built by the German engineering giant Siemens. Experts warn that the virus could be used for sabotage.
One of the most sophisticated pieces of malware ever detected has infected tens of thousands of computers in Indonesia, India, the United States, Australia, Britain, Malaysia and Pakistan. The biggest target, however, has been Iran.
The computer virus, known as Stuxnet, is a "working and fearsome prototype of a cyber-weapon that could lead to the creation of a new arms race," Kaspersky Labs, an Internet security firm based in Moscow, warned in a statement.
The German engineering conglomerate Siemens, which developed the systems attacked by Stuxnet, said the malware spreads via infected USB thumb drive memory sticks, exploiting vulnerabilities in the Microsoft Windows operating system.
The super-virus attacks software programs that run on Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition, or SCADA, systems, a product developed by Siemens and sold around the world, including to Iran. SCADA is used to manage water supplies, oil rigs, power plants and other industrial facilities.
Once the worm infects a system, it quickly sets up communications with a remote server computer that can be used to steal proprietary information or take control of the SCADA system.
Bildunterschrift: Iran is suspected of secretly developing nuclear weapons using its Bushehr facility as a cover
Stuxnet source unknown
Computer security experts have said the attackers may have chosen to spread the malicious software via thumb drives because many SCADA systems control sensitive operations and are therefore not connected to the Internet, but do have USB ports.
Ralf Langner, a German cyber security specialist, said the attack was launched by an as yet unknown software expert, very possibly a nation state.
"This is not some hacker sitting in the basement of his parents' house," he said.
Stuxnet is able to recognize a specific facility's control network and then destroy it, said Langner. He said he suspects that the virus' target was the Bushehr nuclear reactor facility in Iran.
Since June, Tehran has blamed unspecified problems for a delay in getting the facility fully operational. Iran's ISNA news agency reported that the country's nuclear agency met to determine a way to combat the computer worm.
A Siemens spokesperson, however, said the Iranian nuclear power plant was built with help from a Russian contractor and that Siemens was not involved. The spokesperson added that the company would not speculation the virus' target.
A study of the Stuxnet virus conducted by the US technology company Symantec showed that the country most affected by the virus was Iran with nearly 63,000 infected computers or more than two-thirds of all cases worldwide.
So far, neither Siemens nor cyber security experts in Europe, Russia or the United States, have discovered who is behind the Stuxnet attacks, but Langner said investigations would eventually point to the attackers.
"The attackers must know this," he said. "My conclusion is they don't care. They don't fear going to jail."
Fuji Heavy Industries' next-generation "boxer engine" (KOJI NISHIMURA/ THE ASAHI SHIMBUN)
Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd., maker of Subaru vehicles, is introducing a next-generation horizontal engine, the company said Thursday.
It is the first major overhaul of Subaru engines for Legacy passenger cars and other vehicles since the current engine was introduced in 1989.
The engine's pistons are arranged symmetrically on the left and right of the crankshaft. It is also called a "boxer engine" because the piston movements resemble punches thrown by boxers.
With its redesigned piston shape and placement, the boxer engine achieves higher combustion efficiency. Its lightweight components offer 10-percent improved fuel efficiency over Subaru's current engines, helping to meet higher environmental standards in industrialized countries.
The company will produce boxer engines with 2- and 2.5-liter displacements. It will build them into the updated Forester model from this autumn and later in other model lines.
Although boxer engines have a low center gravity and offer better driving performance with smooth acceleration, Fuji Heavy Industries is the only manufacturer to produce the engines in Japan due to the sheer number of components that are needed.
As defined by IUPAC, rare earth elements or rare earth metals are a collection of seventeen chemical elements in the periodic table, namely scandium, yttrium, and the fifteen lanthanides.[1] Scandium and yttrium are considered rare earths since they tend to occur in the same ore deposits as the lanthanides and exhibit similar chemical properties.
The term "rare earth" arises from the rare earth minerals from which they were first isolated, which were uncommon oxide-type minerals (earths) found in Gadolinite extracted from one mine in the village of Ytterby, Sweden. However, with the exception of the highly-unstable promethium, rare earth elements are found in relatively high concentrations in the earth's crust, with cerium being the 25th most abundant element in the Earth's crust at 68 parts per million.
IBM says it is using idle computers worldwide to help researchers study the Chesapeake Bay.
IBM announced four clean water projects Tuesday, including one that will help University of Virginia researchers predict how commercial development, fishing and agriculture affect the bay.
The computing giant says researchers will use its network of 1.5 million personal computers in 80 countries to crunch data while their owners are away or doing tasks that don't require much processing power.
Other projects IBM is supporting include research in China into developing more efficient water filtration techniques and eliminating a common waterborne disease in Brazil.
10:38 a.m. | Updated to correct the name of the company that EMC purchased last year.
The high-stakes sumo match between Hewlett-Packard and Dell ended on Thursday, with H.P. paying about $2.3 billion for 3Par.
I.B.M. has said it looked at 3Par and other companies more than two years ago, when it was building up in the field of clustered storage, an important technology in handling data remotely for so-called cloud computing systems. Instead of 3Par, it bought an Israeli clustered-storage specialist, XIV.
I.B.M. did not report the price tag on XIV. But analysts estimate it probably paid less than $200 million for a business that now generates more sales than 3Par’s revenue of $194 million last year.
I.B.M. will not comment on those estimates, but it does point to the XIV deal as an example of how its research labs are used to inform the company’s merger, acquisition and divestiture strategy.
In fact, Big Blue’s storage business has been bolstered by a series of early-stage purchases in the sector over the last couple of years, including Arsenal Digital, Storwize and Diligent. I.B.M. has not gotten in the middle of pricey bidding wars like the one over 3Par or over Data Domain, which EMC bought last year for $2.4 billion, after beating out NetApp.
The labs, explains Robert Morris, a vice president of I.B.M. Research, provide strategic “headlights” for the company as a whole. At the end of each year, the lab researchers prepare a global technology outlook, which presents senior management with an assessment and predictions about key technologies over the coming several years.
As a senior research manager, Mr. Morris also meets with members of I.B.M.’s M.&A. teams four times a year. “It’s not enough to see in the future, you have to act,” he said. “If you’re ahead of the game, you can go in and get companies at a good price, before others recognize the value.”
The researchers, Mr. Morris adds, learn things from the I.B.M. acquisition teams as well. “They’ll say, ‘Have you seen this little company?’ ” he said. “They’re like sensors in the marketplace. We develop a lot inside I.B.M., but most innovation is going on outside any single company.”
An earlier version of this post misstated the name of the company that EMC bought last year. It is Data Domain, not Digital Domain.
Back in May, we told you about some industrial films that IBM commissioned from the Muppets in the 1960s. The decade before that, the office-equipment giant was a major advertiser in glossy mass-circulation magazines such as LIFE.Today, those ads are a fascinating, evocative trip back to a world in which technology, work, and workplaces were radically different. Yes, there was a time when the typical piece of business correspondence was a snail-mail letter typed by a secretary on a typewriter which might or might not have been electric-and which had no provision for correcting errors.
(Click to enlarge any images that follow)
Back in the 1950s, IBM was just getting into the computer business, many companies still needed to be convinced that electric typewriters weren't a technological boondoggle, and slide rules were still essential equipment. And the American workplace-at least as depicted in magazine ads-had what we'd now consider a distinct Mad Men edge to it.
Mix yourself the cocktail of your choice, settle into your Eames chair, and return with us now to the era of mainframes and secretarial pools to rediscover these vintage IBM ads fromLIFE and other publications.
February 1950 In the pre-transistor world of 1950, vacuum tubes were still exciting, futuristic technology. IBM hadn't quite started selling general-purpose computers yet; the gadgetry shown in this ad included calculators and time clocks.
The company liked to show atomic imagery in its ads in the 1950s-it, too, was exciting and futuristic.
June 1951 I don't think IBM expected anyone who saw an ad like this inLIFE to rush out and buy an Electronic Calculator. It just wanted to burnish its image as a leading maker of super-sophisticated scientific equipment-one that had already sold thousands of Electronic Business Machines.
December 1951
Here we have a hundred and fifty engineers-all white guys with receding hairlines-somberly contemplating their slide rules and confronting the fact that the IBM Electronic Calculator threatens to put them out of work.
The woman who showed off the calculator in the previous ad has been replaced by a man; from here on out, the females in 1950s IBM ads would be secretaries.
April 1954
She's happy, all right, but she also appears to be typing with one hand while standing nowhere near the typewriter and mugging at the camera. Just think how productive she could be if she chose to type in a more mundane style.
November 1954
We all press Return keys every day-hey, even the iPad has a virtual one-but it's startling to realize that they were once an amazing breakthrough. If you used a manual typewriter-in 1954, lots of folks did-you had to shove the carriage back yourself.
I don't know where Big Blue got the numbers it quotes in this ad-especially the factoid about the average typist returning the carriage 268,000 times a year-but I like them.
June 1955 IBM, logically enough, came to the conclusion that it needed to convince both secretaries (who did the typing) and bosses (who paid the bills and took the credit) that it made the best typewriters. I can't look at this ad (with "Miss S." and "Mr. R." making goo-goo eyes and their letters' references to love and pleasure) without constructing an unwholesome backstory in my mind.
IBM electric typewriter ads often showed the machines conspicuously unplugged-in order to remind businesses with manual typewriters that IBMs had a plug, I guess.
October 1955 Another "Secretary and Boss" ad, with separate pitches to "the men who sign the letters" and "the girls who type the letters." It was a simpler time.
January 1956
This ad's so inspiring it almost makes me wish I'd been around in 1956 to seek a "provocative" job as an IBM field technician. I love the reference to "the world's largest computer"-it wouldn't be that much longer before the only size-related bragging that computer companies did would involve miniaturization, not enormity.
The machine in question was the IBM 702-an archetypal room-filling mainframe that used magnetic tape rather than familiar punch cards. It was the company's first real commercial computer, and it was already out of production when this ad ran.
November 1956 You thought Steve Jobs invented the idea of gizmos in multiple colors? More than forty years before polychromatic Macs, IBM offered typewriters in six scintillating hues: Yellow Jasmine, Titian Glow, Larkspur Blue, Dove Grey, Cascade Grey, and Tropic Tan. I'm not sure whether this lady got an IBM to match her flowers or vice versa.
Note also that workmen were apparently allowed to smoke in the office in 1956.
February 1957 Here's how you knew you'd made it in American business in 1957: You got a perky secretary, a fancier lamp, and a painting (of yourself?-I can't quite tell) behind your desk. You also had to wear a three-piece suit and take up using a pocket watch. Oh, and being male was pretty much mandatory.
The IBM typewriter in this ad was an impressive piece of technology-the only available model with proportionally-spaced characters. IBM bragged that it permitted the preparation of right-justified documents. (One catch: They had to be typed twice, using special variable-width space bars.)
December 1980 Fast-forward twenty-two years. By the early 1980s, the typewriter was a dead gadget walking-not just because of the personal computer (IBM would announce its first PC a little over six months after this ad appeared) but also because of word processors such as those popularized by Wang Labs in the 1970s.
This ad shows just how incredibly mature typewriters had gotten: IBM couldn't claim that the Selectric III would boost your career or impress your customers. Instead, it had to try and get prospective buyers jazzed about refinements such as non-reflective keys. It took another eleven years for it to get out of the typewriter business period. Mainframes, however, it still makes.
The Matthew effect (or "accumulated advantage") in sociology is the phenomenon where "the rich get richer and the poor get poorer".[1][2] Those who possess power and economic or social capital can leverage those resources to gain more power or capital. The term was first coined by sociologist Robert K. Merton in 1968 and takes its name from a line in the biblicalGospel of Matthew:
For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.
The new approach is intended to help users find results more quickly, though some search experts said that indirect changes to how users conduct their searches could also have a wider impact on the many businesses that advertise on Google or rely on traffic from the search engine.
The new feature, called Google Instant, displays full search results as users type in queries, without waiting for them to finish typing or to hit “enter”. “It’s searching before you type – we’re predicting what query you’re likely to do and giving you results for that,” said Marissa Mayer, Google’s head of search products and user experience.
The approach should shave two to five seconds off the average search, Ms Mayer said.
梅尔说，应用该方法，搜索时间平均应该可以削减2至5秒钟。
Sergey Brin, co-founder, said the technological advances that had contributed to the new feature highlighted “a little bit of a new dawn in computing”, as companies such as Google, Apple and Amazon experiment with new user interfaces to make it easier to find and use information.
Google said it could not yet determine how far Google Instant would change search behaviour, but some analysts said the impact of the launch could reverberate through the online economy that has built up around the Google search service. “It’s potentially enormously significant,” said Greg Sterling, a US search engine analyst. “Anything that changes the way people interact with search results will affect the many businesses that rely on search.”
He and other analysts said that search users could be drawn to the top results that Google returns as they type their queries, giving extra prominence to companies whose websites come out high in search results. By putting greater emphasis on the top results, the change could have important implications for any business that uses so-called search engine optimisation to try to gain prominence in search results, Mr Sterling said.
Google executives said the new feature should not change the search results that users eventually click on, since the underlying relevance algorithms used to determine the order in which results are shown had not changed.
IBM Unveils zEnterprise, New Systems Architecture Ushers in Era of Smarter Data Centers
IBM today announced the zEnterprise mainframe server and a new systems design that allows workloads on mainframe, POWER7 and System x servers to share resources and be managed as a single, virtualized system. The new mainframe is also the most powerful and energy-efficient mainframe ever.
The new systems design combines IBM's new zEnterprise mainframe server with new technology--the IBM zEnterprise BladeCenter Extension and the IBM zEnterprise Unified Resource Manager--that enable it to manage workloads running across System z, and select POWER7 and System x servers. The new technology is the result of an investment of more than $1.5 billion in IBM research and development as well as more than three years of collaboration with some of IBM's top clients around the world.
IBM engineer Don Gunvalsen, Poughkeepsie, loads the new IBM zEnterprise System mainframe into a test chamber in the company’s Poughkeepsie, N.Y. facility that subjects the computer to extreme variations in temperatures. The zEnterprise System, the result of three years and $1.5 billion in IBM research and development, marks the most significant design change in 20 years for the IBM mainframe, extending the mainframe’s powerful reliability and security features to additional systems in the data center (Feature Photo Service for IBM).
IBM employees Larry Terpak (foreground), Johnson City, N.Y., and Chris Wallner, Poughkeepsie, size up covers ready to be installed on the new IBM zEnterprise System mainframe. The zEnterprise System, the result of three years and $1.5 billion in IBM research and development, marks the most significant design change in 20 years for the IBM mainframe, extending the mainframe’s powerful reliability and security features to additional systems in the data center (Feature Photo Service for IBM).
IBM zEnterprise System Mainframe: World's Fastest Microprocessors - IBM technician Asia Dent, Poughkeepsie, tests the world's fastest microprocessor, made in New York and shipping to clients on Sept. 10. The heart of IBM's new zEnterprise System mainframes, the new chip helps deliver world-record speed (5.2 GHz) as the world's transactions and data continue to grow. The new technology is the result of an investment of more than $1.5 billion in IBM research and development. (Feature Photo Service for IBM). (PRNewsFoto/IBM, Feature Photo Service For IBM)
IBM employees James Geuke, (top) Poughkeepsie, and Larry Terpak (standing), Johnson City, N.Y., install covers on the new IBM zEnterprise System mainframe. The zEnterprise System, the result of three years and $1.5 billion in IBM research and development, marks the most significant design change in 20 years for the IBM mainframe, extending the mainframe’s powerful reliability and security features to additional systems in the data center (Feature Photo Service for IBM).
IBM engineer Joseph Corrado, Marlboro, N.Y., installs a new x86 blade server into a test unit of IBM’s new IBM zEnterprise System mainframe. The new mainframe is the first to manage workloads running on IBM x86 and Unix systems -- enabling the data center to be centrally managed. The zEnterprise System, the result of three years and $1.5 billion in IBM research and development, marks the most significant design change in 20 years for the IBM mainframe, extending the mainframe’s powerful reliability and security features to additional systems in the data center (Feature Photo Service for IBM).
IBM zEnterprise System Mainframe: First Production from a New Facility 1
Date added: 22 Jul 2010
IBM employees Einar Norman, (left) Plattekill, N.Y. and Richard Lane, Rosendale, N.Y., prepare IBM’s new zEnterprise System Mainframe for shipment in the company’s Poughkeepsie, N.Y. plant. IBM added a new, 56,000-square-foot, $30 million production floor to its Poughkeepsie plant in 2010 to manufacture the new computer. Altogether the zEnterprise System represents $1.5 billion in R&D investment for IBM and a three-year, 24-hour development cycle that spanned three continents and involved more than 5,000 IBMers working a total of 31 million hours (Feature Photo Service for IBM).
IBM zEnterprise System Mainframe: First Production from a New Facility 2
Date added: 22 Jul 2010
IBM employees Einar Norman, (left) Plattekill, N.Y. and Richard Lane, Rosendale, N.Y., prepare IBM’s new zEnterprise System Mainframe for shipment in the company’s Poughkeepsie, N.Y. plant. IBM added a new, 56,000-square-foot, $30 million production floor to its Poughkeepsie plant in 2010 to manufacture the new computer. Altogether the zEnterprise System represents $1.5 billion in R&D investment for IBM and a three-year, 24-hour development cycle that spanned three continents and involved more than 5,000 IBMers working a total of 31 million hours.
IBM zEnterprise System Mainframe: First Production from a New Facility 3
Date added: 22 Jul 2010
IBM employees Einar Norman, (left) Plattekill, N.Y. and Richard Lane, Rosendale, N.Y., prepare IBM’s new zEnterprise System Mainframe for shipment in the company’s Poughkeepsie, N.Y. plant. IBM added a new, 56,000-square-foot, $30 million production floor to its Poughkeepsie plant in 2010 to manufacture the new computer. Altogether the zEnterprise System represents $1.5 billion in R&D investment for IBM and a three-year, 24-hour development cycle that spanned three continents and involved more than 5,000 IBMers working a total of 31 million hours (Feature Photo Service for IBM).
