MSP130 [] Science is Slick #8: Pencils, Ultrasonics and Water Cooled Windows

Published: July 21, 2020, 10 p.m.

Could pencil and paper be the future of medical diagnosis sensors and facial recognition software? Can water filled windows cool your house? And are ultrasonic waves really the next jump in screen technology? Science is slick…

Hosts:
Matt Armitage & Jeff Sandhu
Produced: Jeff Sandhu for BFM89.9

Source Links:

https://www.bfm.my 

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2244446-ultrasonic-speakers-let-people-who-are-blind-read-braille-in-mid-air/ 

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2248486-noise-cancelling-windows-halve-traffic-sounds-even-when-theyre-open/ 

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2247368-water-filled-windows-could-keep-your-home-cool-and-save-energy/ 

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2247049-us-military-electroshock-weapon-can-hit-a-person-100-metres-away/ 

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2248749-sketch-a-heart-sensor-with-pencil-drawings-that-become-electrodes/ 

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2245996-an-ai-can-generate-photographs-of-peoples-faces-from-line-drawings/ 

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2248687-teaching-an-ai-to-be-less-biased-doesnt-have-to-make-it-less-accurate/ 


There’s a smell in the air today. And that smell is knowledge. That’s right, MSP’s Matt Armitage is back with another round of deep tech stories as he announces that science is slick. 


Where are we starting today?

  • Accessibility.
  • Something we’ve highlighted in a bunch of shows recently. 
  • The coronavirus has made us all much more dependent on technology to maintain any kind of semblance of normality in our daily lives. 
  • The Internet has become our tool for reaching the outside world - whereas only a few months it was the opposite. 
  • A place for people to retreat from reality. 
  • There are apps for everything. 
  • And that leaves us with the problem of the people who don’t have access to the technology or for whom the tech doesn’t work. 


We mentioned virtual touchscreens, I think…

  • Yes. Those Minority report style screens that enable you to navigate your hands without touching. 
  • And we mentioned things like sonic pressure being used in those devices to create the haptics - the sensation of pressing a key or a screen. 
  • A team of researchers at the University of Bayreuth in Germany has gone a step further.
  • They’ve created a haptic system based on ultrasound waves that can recreate braille characters in the air for the visually impaired. 
  • The system can be used as an alternate display on ATMs or other public terminals.