Kano has announced a partnership with Warner Bros. Consumer Products to launch the Harry Potter Kano Coding Kit, the first-ever Harry Potter STEM product.

Kano has been doing great things but don’t think that they have simply stamped Harry’s lightning mark on a Raspberry Pi.

The new kit is actually a build-it-yourself wireless wand! Furthermore, it will show fans of all ages how to code and create.

Soon you (or your kids) will be able to flick and swish through more than 70 challenges inspired by the Wizarding World.

Kano Harry Potter wand STEM kit

The wand works with software and a connected app to capture movements and turn them into rich effects. Expect it to make serpents slither, toads transfigure, fires flow, feathers float, goblets duplicate, Bertie Bott’s Every-Flavour Beans enlarge, you get the idea.

By following the step-by-step coding manual, you build a wand, and learn about sensors, data and code along the way.

The wand combines a gyroscope, accelerometer and magnetometer to detect its own location and speed in tridimensional space. Basically, all that makes it capable of tracking your hand movement.

These sensors allow it to place a cursor on screen exactly where you point it. Additionally, it will also recognise the motions of some signature spells. You can also code the wand’s light and rumble pack.

Kano app

Once the wand has been assembled you just need the Kano app. This enables you to start unlocking challenges across six iconic Wizarding World settings. Naturally, you get to explore Hogwarts, Diagon Alley, Hogsmeade and The Forbidden Forest.

The creative challenges teach the fundamentals of coding and introduce the basic concepts of real-world programming thanks to a block-based interface and a JavaScript inspector. These are all tackled using simple steps.

Alex Klein, Co-Founder and CEO of Kano told us:

We’re surrounded by technology in our homes, workplaces and pockets, yet only a small percent of people, less than 1% of 1%, understand the happenings behind the screen. We are thrilled to partner with Warner Bros Consumer Products to inspire people of all ages, all over the world to make their own code, and see how easy it can be to understand, play and create with it.”

Price and availability

The Harry Potter Kano Coding Kit is now available for pre-order for £99 at Kano.me.

The kit will go on sale worldwide at Kano.me and retailers in the United States, Canada, the UK, Australia and New Zealand starting October 1st, 2018. Yup, get your pre-orders in now for Christmas

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MERGE has just announced its newest product, the MERGE Cube.

It might unnervingly look like the ‘Box of Delights’ from Hellraiser, but the MERGE Cube merges the physical and digital worlds. Also, I can pretty much guarantee that no Cenobites will be sneaking in to your kids’ room. Not via this cube any how.

MERGE Cube

Using augmented reality (AR) tech and the camera and sensors in your mobile device, this Cube enables you to physically hold and interact with 3D digital objects like never before.

There are already dozens of games and experiences built for it.

So, do you fancy holding a galaxy in the palm of your hand? Let’s face it, who doesn’t? Then you can also add in to the mix examining ancient artifacts, watching a volcano erupt before your eyes, and more.

Miniverse

[amazon_link asins=’B0741FNH18′ template=’ProductAd’ store=’gadgnews-21′ marketplace=’UK’ link_id=”]MERGE also offers the MERGE Miniverse. This is a curated portal to virtual and augmented worlds.
 
You see, the company not only creates physical products and apps – its team of VR experts also curates a library of high quality, family-friendly experiences. The list includes 360º videos, and virtual and augmented reality apps and games.
 
All of the content on MERGE Miniverse is tested and rated for age appropriateness, quality, and motion intensity.
 

Words

MERGE founder, Franklin Lyons, stated:

We’re excited to bring the MERGE Cube to the UK and put this technology into people’s hands. With this first-of-its-kind product, people can experience the wonder and amazement of interacting with holographic, 3D content in a natural and intuitive way. Our MERGE Cube and Goggles allow users to interact with more than just a screen – now they can build worlds, explore the human brain, visit foreign lands and more through the power of VR/AR.”

Price and availability

The MERGE Cube is affordably priced at just £19.99 and is available now in the UK on Amazon.

To learn how the MERGE Cube works, visit MERGECube.com/start.

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Humanoid autonomous robots are currently science fiction. However, scientists have come up with an artificial muscle that responds like natural muscle. It’s also squidgy which makes the likihood that our robot overlords might soon appear human.

Bringing a new meaning to software, these artificial muscles could enable humanoid robots to move and act with more human-like grace. They could even let these androids mimic human facial expressions too.

In order to make robots or androids become part of our day-to-day life, many think that they will need to appear more human. Personally, I think that this will have the opposite effect. Saying that, I was raised on the likes of Terminator and Blade Runner; you know, films where the more human-looking robots were rather loose-cannons.

On the flip-side, however, if we have androids that can move like people, then there will be no need to customise current workspaces in order to accomodate them.

Furthermore, having squigy robots working alongside you will be less hazardous than hulking great metallic machines. Until they decide to rebel, but that’s for another article.

Droids not ‘roids

A team led by Aslan Miriyev, a postdoctoral researcher in Columbia University’s Creative Machines Lab, has developed a synthetic muscle that pushes, pulls, or twists in response to heat.

Their experiments suggest that the artificial muscle is capable of lifting 1,000 times its own weight. Additionally, it can expand 15 times more than natural muscle and is also three times stronger. So, not only handy for androids but, possibly cyborgs?

Cybernetics

The 3-D printed artificial muscle could be used to augment movement for people with disabilities. Since it’s made from biocompatible, relatively inexpensive materials, the artificial muscle could be surgically embedded or used as an exoskeleton prosthesis.

You see, no external compressor or high voltage equipment is required, as in previous artificial muscles.
[youtube id=”1J47difr3oo”]
Soft actuator technologies typically use pneumatic or hydraulic inflation to expand elastomer skin with air or liquid. The compressors and such prevents the miniaturisation needed to install in human-like droids.

To get around that bulky actuator equipment, the scientists designed a silicone rubber matrix. This expands or contracts as ethanol enters or exits micro-bubbles embedded inside the material.

The artificial muscle is actuated with a low-power 8V resistive wire. When heated to 80°C, the artificial muscle could expand to up to 900% its initial size, allowing it to perform motion.

Words

Miriyev states:

Our soft functional material may serve as robust soft muscle, possibly revolutionizing the way that soft robotic solutions are engineered today. It can push, pull, bend, twist, and lift weight. It’s the closest artificial material equivalent we have to a natural muscle.”

Next steps

The team will now move to improve their design.

They are currently looking in to replacing the embedded wire with conductive materials, accelerating the response time, and increasing the artificial muscle’s shelf life.

Ultimately, machine learning algorithms will take control of the muscle’s contractive motion in order to replicate natural movement as closely as possible.

Exciting and scary times ahead!

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In a world dominated by computers, it’s easy to forget about the small things that make the world go round and the technology that makes everything so easy.

NASA is notorious for creating and acquiring technology that is later used and mass marketed by the private sector. The following are just a few of these inventions:

Duct Tape

It might be a joke that duct tape can fix anything, but there’s a reason it has endured for so long. While similar types of tape have been around since the turn of the 20th century, what is now known as duct tape was developed by Johnson & Johnson during World War II. Because it was so versatile, tough and waterproof, it quickly became popular with soldiers. Amazingly, these qualities also helped Apollo 13 return home after an explosion forced the mission to be aborted. The astronauts used the airtight and watertight duct tape to attach the CO2 scrubbers to the filter system, which helped them make it home safely.

Rubber

Rubber is a technology that people can’t live without. Rubber is in everything from car tires to the insulation on the electrical wiring in homes. The natural insulation of rubber enables computers to work without encountering electrical shorts, and its elasticity means it can be used in tires and gaskets to help cars move from point A to point B.

The aeronautics and space industries also have a major use for rubber. Outside of the electrical devices that use rubber and plastic as insulation, rubber o-rings are an integral part of the fuel system. O-rings provide an extremely strong seal between the fuel mixtures to ensure that none escapes before it is needed. The rubber in o-rings also can withstand a wide variety of temperatures and pressures, making it the perfect material for space travel.

Digital cameras

Photography has advanced significantly over the last 100 years. While many people may take it for granted today, before about 20 years ago, the most portable camera most people owned was a disposable camera from Kodak.

While this was fine for many people, it wasn’t good enough for NASA. Photographic film is vulnerable to radiation, which outer space is full of since it doesn’t have the atmosphere to protect it. Because NASA needed a better way to take photos of the Earth, moon and beyond, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) helped develop camera sensors that were small enough to bring aboard a space mission while still being of scientific quality. This miniaturisation of camera sensors helped the private sector develop the technology that enables people to carry digital and smartphone cameras with them everywhere today.

Water filters

It costs about $10,000 to launch one pound of material into space. One gallon of water weighs eight pounds, so astronauts have to make sure that none of it goes to waste on their long-term missions. The same technology that makes water taste good is the same sort of technology used in the space program.

Because of the limited drinking water supply, it is extremely important that the space program’s testing and detection systems are sensitive enough to sense any problems before they occur. For example, the microbial check valve lets astronauts use iodine as a major purifying agent. Iodine is good at killing pathogens, but in large quantities it can be harmful to the body. This means that they need a machine to remove the excess iodine before it is reintroduced into the system.

Memory Foam

The fancy chairs business owners buy for their employees and the comfortable beds people get a good night’s rest on are all thanks to NASA’s development of memory foam. One of the rigors of space travel on astronauts is due to the rapid acceleration and deceleration that the body undergoes when leaving and entering the atmosphere. It can be especially harmful if their body is being pressed into a rigid surface. Memory foam helps distribute the forces exerted on the body, which makes for a more comfortable trip for astronauts and a better night’s sleep for consumers.

NASA’s development and use of certain pieces of technology have made a big impact on the private sector and consumers. Inventions that were initially intended for a specific scientific purpose have made their way into people’s homes and changed the way the average person uses them.

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ResMed, a leading innovator in sleep that has been changing lives for more than 25 years, announced today that their smarter sleep solution, the S+, is available for consumers in the UK.

The S+ features patent-protected SleepSensor technology which makes it possible for the first time to track, analyse and improve sleep at home without needing to wear a wristband or use electrodes or mattress strips. Unlike other sleep trackers it also has the capability to analyse each stage of sleep through the night.

One in three people in the UK regularly suffer from poor sleep and experience problems with daytime functioning as a result. Poor sleep is also associated with long-term mental and physical health consequences including a shortened life span.

The S+ is designed to improve sleep from the very first night and results from the US, where the S+ is already available, show that below-average sleepers slept an extra 45 minutes each night after just one week’s use of the S+.

The S+ comprises of a device that sits beside the bed, a cloud-hosted Sleep Mentor system, and a free mobile app (Apple iOS and Android). The bedside device uses a highly calibrated respiratory and bio-motion sensor to measure and analyse sleep stages. It records movements caused by the expansion and relaxation of the chest with breathing in and out, and overall body movements such as positional changes, arm twitches and shrugs.

Each morning, the S+ app delivers sleep scores and sleep charts to a connected phone or tablet, and the S+ Sleep Mentor uses a software algorithm based on over two million nights of sleep data to deliver personalised feedback and suggestions to help users improve their sleep.

Unlike other smartphone apps and other sleep trackers on the market, the S+ accurately tracks every stage of the sleep process. It provides an accurate breakdown of how the night unfolds, pinpointing sleep onset, and tracking cycles of light, deep and REM sleep to help build up a picture of the quality of sleep achieved as well as the quantity.

Hanna Salminen, Head of Consumer Strategy, stated that

We know that people who want to measure their sleep really need to be able to rely on the results they are given in order to be able to make meaningful changes. The SleepSensor technology behind the S+ by ResMed means they can have total confidence, and they have the added benefit of not having to wear or sleep on top of a device. Our commitment to advancing sleep science has helped many people with sleep disorders, and now with the S+ our aim is to help everybody improve their sleep in order to live life to the full.”

The S+ app provides daily feedback in the form of a 0-100 Sleep Score and Sleep Charts which provide a breakdown of the light, deep and REM sleep the user has achieved overnight. The S+ has a range of additional features to help improve sleep:

• Relax to Sleep provides a choice of soothing sounds that synchronize with breathing patterns to help with the process of falling asleep at bedtime.
• Mind Clear allows users to record a voice message or type a text note to help clear their mind when trying to settle to sleep.
• Smart Alarm allows users to set a window of time for the S+ to naturally wake them when they are in light sleep, allowing them to wake feeling more refreshed.

As well as the respiratory and bio-motion sensor technology, the S+ has additional sensors that help analyse the sleeping environment by measuring light, temperature and noise levels and evaluating whether the user’s sleep patterns are influenced by these factors. The S+ also analyses how lifestyle factors such as exercise, and stress levels, along with caffeine and alcohol consumption affect the user’s sleep patterns.

According to Dr Guy Meadows, Clinical Director at The Sleep School,

The arrival of the S+ by ResMed into the UK marks a significant moment for home sleep tracking. It will give people the opportunity to accurately measure their sleep within their homes and play a significant role in improving their sleep quality and daytime performance. In order to live functional, happy, healthy lives we need to ensure we are prioritising sleep. It is arguably the most important thing we do in our day, yet we seem to have forgotten that as a society. The launch of the S+ by ResMed gives us all a chance to reappraise just how important sleep is.”

The S+ has been rigorously tested in 10 independent clinical trials, and has also been tested and proven against expert manually scored patient sleep data gathered in several accredited sleep laboratories. It has been recognised for innovation and design by the prestigious RedDot and CES award categories.

The S+ by ResMed will be available at the price of £129.95 at mySleep.resmed.com, ResMed clinics, Amazon and John Lewis.

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The Project Mayak team has announced the official start of preparations for the launch of the Mayak satellite into orbit – the first Russian spacecraft created by crowdfunding. It will also become the brightest star in the Earth’s sky.

This exciting space venture is the work of a skilled team including the official Chief Stress Therapist, Quasar – the furriest one of the team.

The founding team first created a model of Mayak and then looked in to getting the project crowdfunded. They managed to raise almost £5,000 which meant that they could take their project to the next stage.

Once the Mayak satellite has been launched and is in a steady geosynchronous orbit, Mayak will unfurl its sun reflector, which will sparkle like a bright and shining star. From Earth’s surface, It will look like the brightest star in the night sky twinkling away.

The satellite is a container that holds ammonium carbonate, polymer film, two gas generators and a computer. Ammonium carbonate will decompose when heated to give carbon dioxide, water and ammonia.

After takeoff, a gas generator should start to fill with gas the frame of the pyramid by its ribs, whereby it will take a flat and stable form. Another gas generator will cause the satellite to spin, which will make it more visible to people at night.

The reflector is the three-meter pyramid of reflective metallic membrane, which is 20 times thinner than a human hair! During the launch, the reflector is neatly folded inside the satellite and, after reaching orbit, it is straightened out in to its functioning shape.

Alexander Shaenko, Project Manager of Mayak Team states:

We want to demonstrate through a practical example that space, the final frontier, has become closer and more accessible, and now launching a real spacecraft can be accomplished by friends and adherents”

He goes on to say:

Everyone who will find our star in the night sky, will see not just reflection from the satellite. It will be reflection of a dream of millions of people who united to reach a common goal.”

Besides the fact that Mayak will become the brightest star in the sky, it will also help with implementation of several scientific goals.

Among those goals is a real flight test of an aerodynamic braking device, which subsequently can be used for de-orbiting space debris. This will utilise Mayak’s pyramid as a reference object for checking calculations of apparent magnitude of space.

The problem of space debris has become more and more important – for now, there are over 100 million pieces of debris smaller than 1 cm, and more than 1,500 objects, over 100 kg, moving around the Earth at speeds of 7 to 8 km/s, which is really dangerous.

Also, it will help to gather new information about the density of air at high altitudes.

The Mayak launch is scheduled to the second quarter of 2016 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, by carrier rocket Soyuz-2 with the Fregat booster.

The Project Mayak Team has already signed a launch agreement with a state corporation “Roscosmos”.

To find more about Mayak Project please visit cosmomayak.com and check out the video below:
[youtube id=”IBtI_pV4Q_I”]

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Saturday November 14th is World Diabetes Day 2015 and LabStyle have launched their sophisticated Dario diabetes system in the UK which allows Type 1 and Type 2 diabetics to test their blood sugar via their mobile device.

The Dario is an easy-to-use monitor that connects to your smartphone and will automatically log blood sugar levels on the Dario app, keeping the user informed and their loved ones reassured.

This pocket-sized solution, which is compatible with iOS and Android, records your entire diabetes history to indicate how your sugars change, count your carbs, log your meals and keep a food database.

It gives actionable insights, calculates AIC levels, and can even share the information so that you can keep family and caregivers in the loop, thus alerting them of potentially life-threatening changes.

You just have to plug in the Dario Meter which connects directly to your mobile device without the need for additional cables. The glucose meter easily plugs into your phone’s headphone socket

You will get your entire blood glucose metering process in just 6 seconds from a tiny blood sample.

The pocket-sized Dario All in One (£24.99) package includes blood glucose meter, lancing device and storage for test strips (available through the NHS) (World Diabetes Day offer – £9.95).

Compact Dario Lite (£14.95) includes blood glucose meter.

For more information and to buy, visit http://bit.ly/AdvancedTherapeutics

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Global healthcare leader, MSD (Merck Sharp & Dohme Ltd) and Wayra, Telefonica’s tech start up accelerator, have announced their partnership to launch the first preventative healthcare start-up programme in the UK.

The acceleration programme, called Velocity Health, will kick off with a search for the UK’s best tech start-ups who can win the chance to have their innovations developed and their ideas brought to market to deliver early health detection of diseases including cancer, Alzheimer’s, obesity and diabetes.

With the NHS funding gap set to reach £30billion by 2020 (source: NHS England Five Year Forward View Oct 2014) and with only 4% of NHS budget invested in preventative healthcare (source: NHS England Five Year Forward View Oct 2014), digital innovation is being seen as an essential investment to combat the challenges outlined in the NHS Five Year Forward Plan.

In 2014, $4.1bn was invested in the US in digital health companies (source: FT May 2015) focused on consumer engagement, data and analytics, personalised medicine and wearable devices. The large market segment currently dominated by personal fitness and exercise tech is expected to be disrupted over the next decade by virtual reality, artificial intelligence, deep learning, big data analytics and sensor innovation.

The UK government’s commitment to a digital health agenda will drive accelerator programmes like Velocity Health as the industry searches for best tech innovation to help identify and prevent the rise of major diseases amongst an ageing population in the UK.

From intelligent glasses for the visually impaired, to phone apps identifying possible melanoma, Velocity Health will launch its 2015 programme with a search for best tech start-ups in preventative healthcare. They will be hoping to add to the 100 UK tech start-ups already being supported by Wayra in 2015.

MSD will continue to build on over one hundred years’ legacy of healthcare innovation to partner for the first time with Wayra, a start-up accelerator owned by Telefónica Open Future. Wayra first launched in Latin America and Spain and now with 12 innovation hubs in 12 countries the Open Future programme has invested over 300m Euros in 500 businesses and signed 60 partnerships across 17 countries.

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As a spectacle wearer, there’s a range of things which annoy me. Hipsters wearing frames with plain glass lenses, how my glasses steam whenever there’s a change from cold to hot atmosphere, how VR only seems to aimed at those with 20/20 vision and that I am expected to spend a small fortune on corrective surgery without knowing how good the results might be. Optical Express has taken away some of that guesswork.

Thanks to a revolutionary online tool by UK eyecare provider Optical Express you can see the before and after results based on your own prescription.

The idea behind the tool is to help individuals compare their existing natural vision with the eye sight they could achieve through corrective laser eye surgery, but also to allow people to gain an insight into how fun your eyesight without specs or lenses isn’t and why we get peeved when folk that don’t need glasses choose to wear them as a fashion accessory. They wouldn’t wear a brace on their teeth or leg calipers unless they had to would they? Hmmm… praps they would.

This brand new online eye sight simulator tool, designed and created by Optical Express has gone live today, is hoping to help those suffering with poor vision to realise the potential benefits of laser eye surgery.

When you visit the sight site, you’re asked to enter yours or a loved one’s eye prescription details, specifying the Sphere, Cyl and Axis numbers of both the left and right eye.

After uploading their own photo, or selecting a generic picture from the site’s gallery, an image is then generated. The tool simulates how the chosen image would be seen by those with a specific prescription, next to how the same image could look with improved vision. Those who have poor vision and rely on glasses or contact lenses are therefore able to use the simulator to determine how much their sight would improve were they to choose the option of laser eye surgery.

In terms of the design of the simulator, the single page application has been built by the team at Optical Express on .NET 4.5 using C#, with a HTML5/CSS3 front end; using JavaScript to manipulate the page and communicate to the server to apply the blur. It produces a Gaussain kernel based on an individual user’s prescriptions details that have been input.

The kernel concurrently convolves the chosen image based on the generated wave front at the image’s byte level to allow for faster processing. The application is able to automatically decide the kernel size based on the prescription statistics, therefore allowing dynamic amounts of blur. The simulator is also capable of calculating a rotated Gaussian kernel to allow a rotational blur similar to what someone may see if they suffered astigmatism.

The side-by-side images that are produced via the eye sight simulator enable users to essentially see through the eyes of somebody else; gaining insight into the quality of their vision. At the same time, the tool enables those with poor eyesight to see how their vision could improve through laser eye surgery.

Tom Fotheringham, Online Director of opticalexpress.co.uk, made the following comments:

We are really excited to be launching this new eye sight simulator to the general public. First of all, it will help those who know someone suffering from poor vision or an eyesight affliction to further understand just how much of the world their loved one can see naturally. More importantly, the unique technology used within the simulator might just help those who have suffered for years with sight problems to make the decision to invest in surgery to drastically improve their vision.”

Nip over to the simulator and see how the world looks through or your buddy’s eyes.

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We all know that optical fibre broadband is faster than the internets coming down wires, don’t we? It therefore stands to reason that using light to carry data in your computer will make it speedier too. Engineers at Stanford University have created a barcode-like silicon chip that can bend light, moving one step closer towards the creation of computers that use light instead of electricity to carry data.

In what they describe as the ‘optical link’, researchers have created a tiny piece of silicon that has been etched with a barcode-like pattern.

Writing on Stanford University’s news site, Chris Cesare says:

When a beam of light is shined at the link, two different wavelengths (colours) of light split off at right angles to the input, forming a T shape. This is a big step toward creating a complete system for connecting computer components with light rather than wires.”

Using light rather than electricity would act as a much faster way of transmitting data. Electrical engineering professor Jelena Vuckovic, who led the research, says:

Light can carry more data than a wire, and it takes less energy to transmit photons than electrons”.

In effect the nano-scale etched silicon slice can split waves of light in the same way a glass prism does – hence the Dark Side of the Moon picture at the head of this article.

Cesare states

The team engineered the effect using a subtle understanding of how the speed of light changes as it moves through different materials. What we call the speed of light is how fast light travels in a vacuum. Light travels a bit more slowly in air and even more slowly in water. This speed difference is why a straw in a glass of water looks dislocated.”

The barcode etchings were designed by an algorithm to make one wavelength of light go left and a different wavelength to go right.

Both 1300-nanometer light and 1550-nanometer light, corresponding to C-band and O-band wavelengths widely used in fiberoptic networks, were beamed at the device from above. The bar code-like structure redirected C-band light one way and O-band light the other, right on the chip”

This is just one step towards creating a computer fitted out with optic fibre with data whizzing around at light speed – how cool will that be?

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