Energy harvested from this walking shoes can be used to charge your smartphone

Our shoes may become our next energy source. Thanks to a new energy harvesting and storage technology developed by the mechanical engineers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. This technique can reduce reliance on batteries in mobile devices and charge your smartphone as you walk.

Tom Krupenkin, professor of mechanical engineering, and senior scientist J Ashley Taylor described the innovative energy-harvesting technology that can capture the power of human motion to charge mobile electronic devices such as smartphones and laptops.

This could enable a footwear-embedded energy harvester that captures energy produced by humans during walking and stores it for later use.

Power-generating shoes could be especially useful for the military, as soldiers currently carry heavy batteries to power their radios, GPS units, and night-vision goggles in the field. The advance could also provide a source of power to people in remote areas and developing countries that lack adequate electrical power grids.

“Human walking carries a lot of energy. Theoretical estimates show that it can produce up to 10 watts per shoe and that energy is just wasted as heat. A total of 20 watts from walking is not a small thing, especially compared to the power requirements of the majority of modern mobile devices,” explained Krupenkin.

Krupenkin and his colleague J. Ashley Taylor believe that this technology could be a game-changer in the energy space that could power a wide range of devices from your phone to your tablet to just about anything that requires batteries for operation.

A typical smartphone requires less than two watts of energy.

“We have been developing new methods of directly converting mechanical motion into electrical energy that are appropriate for this type of application,” Krupenkin noted in a paper published in the journal Scientific Reports.

The team has been working to develop new method of converting mechanical energy into electrical energy that would work for generating power from a human walker. The process the team is working on now is known as reverse electrowetting. This technique uses a conductive liquid that works with a nanofilm-coated surface that is able to produce electricity.

Researchers developed a ‘bubbler’ method, which combines reverse electrowetting with bubble growth and collapse. A bubbler has no moving mechanical parts and uses a pair of flat plates with a conductive liquid between them. The tiny holes in the bottom plate allow pressurized gas to enter and form tiny bubbles. The bubbles grow until they are large enough to touch the top plate, which causes the bubble to collapse.

The speedy, repetitive growth and collapse of bubbles pushes the conductive fluid back and forth, generating electrical charge. This method produces around 10 watts per square meter of surface and in the space of a shoe; the team believes that making 10 KW of power might be possible.

The findings were published in the journal Scientific Reports.

The engineers are looking for industry to commercialise the technology through their startup company, InStep NanoPower.

 You can now keep your Facebook clean, secure and private with these 6 simple tips

Many of us have got hundreds of Facebook friends, some of we hardly know. Similarly, there may be many such Facebook acquaintances that we are not in touch with.

As we are in the new year, it is a good time now to do some digital cleanup and get rid of the unwanted games, apps, etc. that you no longer use. Also, it is a good time to review your security and privacy settings to ensure that your casual acquaintances are not receiving intimate details of your life.

Here are the six cleanup tips:

1. Secure your account

Major part of your life revolves around digital services such as email and social-networking accounts, it is very important to secure these with a strong password. Similarly, there are many other services that allow you to log on using your Facebook account. So if your Facebook account gets compromised, it will in turn affect your other accounts as well.

Therefore, it would be best not to depend on passwords, as they are difficult to manage. Go to Account Settings – Security – Login Approvals and turn it on. It will then ask for a special confirmation number that would be sent to your phone when you sign in from a new device.

Now no one else can log in with your password unless they also have your phone and that special number. This is something that you set up once and forget about, unless you switch devices often.

2. Review your privacy settings

Facebook provides a series of quick privacy “shortcuts.” Look for the small padlock on the upper right corner of the browser on desktops and laptops. For Apple and Android devices, you need to access shortcuts through the menu – the three horizontal bars.

Facebook’s key privacy shortcuts is “Who can see my stuff ?” You can limit sharing to “Friends” rather than “Public,” or customize it further to exclude certain people or groups. Check “Timeline and Tagging” in account settings and insist on approving posts people tag you in. Note that this is limited to what appears on your personal timeline

Facebook has a Privacy Checkup tool to review your settings, if you are on a desktop or laptop. Look for that padlock. This tool is coming soon to mobile.

3. Make enemies…..or at least unfriend some

Remove friends with whom you are no longer in touch with. If you think “unfriending” is too mean, add them to an “Acquaintances” or “Restricted” list instead. “Acquaintances” means they won’t show up in your news feed as often, though they will still have full access to any posts you distribute to your friends. “Restricted” means they will only see posts you mark as public. Either way is effective to unfriend someone without letting them know that you have done so.

You also can create custom lists, such as “school friends” or “family” by choosing “More” next to “Friends” to the left of your news feed. Individuals can be in multiple groups. Capabilities are limited on mobile devices, even though changes you make on the PC will appear on your phone or tablet.

4. Watch those apps

If you are still unsure if you use the game or app, it’s time to sign out. You can always sign on when you wish to. The Privacy Checkup tool on PCs will review apps for you automatically. Look for “Apps” in the account settings (not “Apps” in the main menu) on mobile devices.

The Security Checkup tool is an easy way to log out of Facebook on devices you rarely use and also enable alerts when someone tries to sign on from a new device or browser. To run this, go to http://Facebook.com/securitycheckup on a PC. On iPhones and iPads, you will have to find the options individually in the account settings under “Security”. You can search for “security checkup” in the Help Center on the Android app.

5. Control your data

By using “News Feeds Preferences”, you can influence whose posts you want to see more or less. The setting is on the lower right on iPhones and on the top right on browsers and Android apps. Here, you can choose friends who will always show up on top, or hide someone’s posts entirely.

Lastly, if you are concerned about data usage, you can stop videos in your news feeds from playing automatically. It is in the account settings under “Videos and Photos” on iPhones. For Android, go to “Autoplay” in the “App Settings.”

6. Plan ahead

You can elect certain friends as trusted contacts in the security settings. This will give them the power to help you, if you get locked out of your account for some reason. You can also appoint a “Legacy Contact” – a family member or close friend who would serve as your administrator in the event of death of the user. While they will not be able to post on your behalf or see your messages, they will however be able to reply to new friend requests and take a few additional actions on behalf of the deceased.

Remember, a secure and private Facebook ensures that you dont lose your sleep over hacking, leaks and unwanted spam posts.

Researchers develop a new optical data storage than can write 360TB on to a Quartz Disk

This invention could be a breakthrough in data storage solutions. Researchers from Southampton University in United Kingdom have developed a new digital data storage technique that uses laser light to store 360 terabytes of information on nanostructured quartz for up to 14 billion years.

Using nanostructured glass, scientists from the University’s Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC) have developed the recording and retrieval processes of five dimensional (5D) digital data by femtosecond laser writing.

The researchers used femtosecond laser pulses to write data in the 3D structure of quartz at the nanoscale. The pulses create three layers of nanostructured dots, each just five microns above the other. The changes in the structure can be read by interrogating the sample with another pulse of light and recording its polarisation —the orientation of the waves—after it’s passed through.

Upon successful testing of the 5D optical disc, one of the first things the research team did was to write the King James Bible on one such small disk. The team has now written a series of major works to small glass discs— including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Newton’s Opticks and the Magna Carta.

The density of the data aboard these discs indicates that that they could squeeze a total of 360 terabytes onto a single piece of quartz. They also point out that the data is extremely stable: It could endure for as long as 13.8 billion years at temperatures up to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

The fabrication process of the 5D optical storage is given below :

We have been struggling to find higher capacity storage disks to store all the immense data that is being generated now a days. While, scientists have been working on various data storage techniques, none have been as successful as this one.

This new advance could be a game changer in the way we store our data not only capacity wise but also time wise. Maybe the team would get a Nobel for their invention this year.

[Southampton University]