The Dynamic and Interaction Group at Glasgow University recently posted a video on Youtube.com showcasing an interesting accelerometer application they’ve designed for use with the iPhone.

As the video demonstrates, Shoogle has the potential to be both hands- and eyes-free.

In lowland Scotland, the verb ‘shoogle’ means to rock back and forth with small rapid movements. In this reference, Shoogle refers to an auditory and tactile iPhone application designed for low-end tasks such as indicating the presence of text messages and battery levels, to name a few.

Users will shake their iPhones to determine if they have messages or what their battery level is, then hear sounds or feel either force or tactile feedback in response. Shoogle has been mounted in both a PDA and a mobile phone and uses a wireless sensor pack.

Research Assistant John Williams, along with Murray-Smith and Stephen Hughes, co-authored the paper describing the project. They presented it at the Association of Computing Machines Special Interest Group – Computer Human Interaction Conference in April-May 2007 in San Jose, Calif.

The research group, led by Roderick Murray Smith, a professor in Glasgow’s department of computing sciences, focuses it efforts on interaction between humans and between humans and computers. These folks find the interaction of a mouse with a computer to be a clumsy artifice, soon to obsolesced by more interactive and less involving input/output processes.

Wii Takes its Marketing to the Streets

To paraphrase the old Chinese saying, “Show a man a fish and he is satisfied for a day, teach a man to fish and he’s hooked for life.” Nintendo is integrating the same philosophy into its Wii marketing – with a twist. Their motto might be “Show a man a Wii and he will nod his head. Teach a man to use the Wii and you’ve got a customer for life.”

Nintendo has hired US Concepts (www.usconcepts.com), a marketing corporation, to show off its Wii in shopping malls and similar venues across the country. They call the overall program Nintendo Street Team. And, as part of the effort to teach people to game, the goal is to have 40 million “impressions” as part of the effort.

Attractive kiosks are set up in a mall and shoppers are invited, at no charge, to play with the Wii game. Such a system was installed at the Southpark Mall in upscale, suburban Cleveland, Ohio. This is one of 25 markets where the concept will be promoted. Even in the off-times, the Wii booth was seldom without a few people experimenting with the motion-enabled gaming system. More typically, there would be a line of people waiting to play the games and several kibitzers offering advice or adding levity to the situation. In all, it makes for a good, informal way to bring motion-enabled gaming to a broader public.

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If you have an automobile or a consumer electronic product, the chances are very good you own a component manufactured by ADI.

     Based in Norwood, Mass., Analog Devices Inc. has 8,500 employees and earns $2.6 billion annually. It MEMS accelerometers represent about 5 percent of total sales.

     The company has three main factories, one each located in Wilmington, Mass., Cambridge, Mass., and Limerick, Ireland. “We also have some backend operations in the Philippines,” says Howard Wisniowski, product marketing manager for iMEMS accelerometers and gyroscopes.

     ADI created the iMEMS line in 1989, which went into production in 1992.  Its first product was the ADXL50, a high-g accelerometer Saab used in its airbag deployment system.

     These days, most iMEMS accelerometers sell to Tier 1 and Tier 2 automotive system suppliers. “Our next biggest market is consumer goods—digital cameras, TV, gaming and portable gaming, medical, navigational and media devices,” says Wisniowski.

     Both the consumer products and automotive markets are “growing healthily” in ADI’s forecasts.

     He described the consumer products market as “exploding.” Some of the factors driving this sector are that digital TVs will be gone by 2009, flat panels are replacing CRTs and the console/computer gaming business is booming.

     “It’s growing above 10 percent annually,” he says.

     ADI’s automotive business is growing 10 percent per year. “By 2011, from 20 to 22 percent of the components of all automobiles will be electronic. 

Just because you are stuck in an airport lounge does not mean you have to give up in-air navigation with your mouse. Gyration this week rolled out its M2000 Travel Air-Mouse at DigitalLife. The unit weighs 3.9 ounces. It comes with an RF receiver that stows in the mouse for portability.

Packaged with a laser desktop sensor, the unit operates at 2.4GHz and has a working range of up to 100 feet (30 meters). Like all Gyration’s mouse products, the M2000 Travel Air-Mouse works both in the air and on the desktop.

“People are increasingly mobile these days, as evidenced by the dominance of notebook computer sales, and aren’t always tied to the desk”, says Greg Smith, vice president for marketing and OEM sales at Gyration. “The Travel Air-Mouse was designed with this in mind, providing the business traveler or ‘digital couch potato’ with the freedom to control their PC and entertainment without the need for a desktop surface.”

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Whether it is a 747-jumbo jet or one of the modern very light jets (VLJ) intended for personal flight, it is imperative that the plane “straighten up and fly right” at all times.

Crossbow Technology makes products that do just that. The company designs and manufactures products using a wide range of solid-state sensors including accelerometers, angular-rate sensors (gyros), magnetometers, GPS and air-data sensors. One area of specialty is avionics systems.

“We were the first MEMS-based gyro available for purchase on the open market,” says Bill Butler, vice president of worldwide sales and marketing for the company’s inertial products. Other companies, like Honeywell, had developed their own for use with their systems.

One of Crossbow’s major clients is Eclipse Aviation (www.eclipseaviation.com), which produced the first certified VLJ. Eclipse’s goal is to design, certify and produce modern, affordable jet aircraft to revolutionize the transportation market. The company is applying advanced electronics systems, manufacturing and business practices to produce aircraft that cost less than a third of today’s small jet aircraft, will be significantly safer. Part of that package is the Crossbow technology.
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