Month: June 2015

Smart Data to evaluate return on retrofitting investment

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Retrofitting technology could benefit the EU economy enormously. Such activities could save up to 60% of a building’s energy consumption and this would translate into direct savings in energy expenditure. But energy technology alone is only part of the answer. There are also other barriers to retrofitting such as financial, legal and political impediments.

To tackle these issues, data collection on how energy is used in buildings is key. Now, an Italian energy efficiency company, Officinæ Verdi, based in Rome, has developed an innovative building management system (BMS) that can directly link energetic performance to financial impact.
This could help convince those making decisions to support high costs for renovation works, such as banks, of the benefits of retrofitting, based on hard data. It could also drive changes in people’s energy consumption behaviour.

Data-driven savings

Officinæ Verdi is working on public buildings, through the European project R2Cities. “We are involved in technology-payback analysis; this means we evaluate the financial sustainability of each technology,” says Giovanni Tordi, CEO of Officinæ Verdi.
He explains that several issues often prevent the implementation of retrofitting like a thermal coat insulation: the considerable costs, the credit crunch and the involvement of all the owners of the building.
Thus, “data could be used as a base for presenting a renovation project to a bank for getting the financial support that is needed,” affirms Simone Tola, coordinator of the public Agency for energy in the Venice province, Italy. In the long run, such fact-based investment may help businesses and the public sector make important energy saving interventions.
To realise the value of energy saving achieved, monitoring is key. An example of such monitoring system is the Mætrics Advanced BMS platform developed by Officinæ Verdi.
It gathers information on energy flows and building environmental parameters—such as humidity, indoor and outdoor temperature, etc.—thanks to a network of sensors displaced in strategic points. Through the platform’s software console, a building manager can analyse the energy consumption inefficiencies in detail. They can also directly link energetic performance with financial cost. This enables fact-based forecasting for future bills.

User behaviour shift

However, data collection may only be part of the issue. It has to be combined with a “smart man-machine interface,” says Fabio Morea, a retrofitting engineering expert at Area Science Park, a cluster of university spin offs and start-up companies in Trieste, Italy. “What is essential in energy saving and sustainability is fusing technological interventions with changes in people’s behaviour.”
The data collected by a platform, such as Mætrics Advanced, could be “a fundamental drive to change how people behave with respect to energy efficiency”, he adds. And changing behaviour is difficult, particularly if people do not see an immediate payback. “We have the technology to retrofit the existing buildings, boost energy savings and limit inefficiencies,” says Tola.

Private vs public

But there could be big differences between the private and public sectors. “Data collection can be used as a leverage, especially if it is directly linked to economic savings,” Tola notes, “but it is much easier in the private than in the public sector.”
If a building manager of a company can see a way to save money in a financially sustainable way, he or she would go for it. “But in the public administration, that would mean that extra-technical and political aspects of energy management should make a little step back,” he adds. Energy and financial data should provide a fact-based platform to determine the development of energy management of public buildings. But it is not so common.

References:http://phys.org/

“Nano-spirals” could make counterfeiting almost impossible

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nano-spirals-counterfeiting

The nano-spirals emit a very specific optical signature that could be recognized by a barcode reader-like device

Researchers from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee have created the world’s smallest continuous spirals. Made from gold, the spirals exhibit a set of very specific optical properties that would be difficult to fake, making them ideal for use in identity cards or other items where authenticity is paramount.

The team used electron-beam lithography to create the minuscule gold spirals, subsequently testing them using ultrafast lasers at Vanderbilt University and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Washington.

It’s not the first time that microscopic spirals have been studied by researchers, but previous efforts have focused on spirals made from individual nanoparticles rather than solid bars, like drawing in dots of ink rather than full lines. The nano-spirals in the new study are also much smaller than those in prior research, with a square array featuring some 100 nano spirals measuring less than one hundredth of a millimeter wide.

Once fabrication was complete, the team began testing the optical properties of the spirals. Each individual spiral is smaller than the wavelength of visible light, affording it some interesting and difficult-to-fake properties.

When the researchers shone an infrared laser on them, an effect known as frequency doubling or harmonic generation occurred, causing a visible blue light to be emitted. Essentially, as the light hits the spirals, it’s absorbed by electrons in structure, and forced along the arms of spiral. So much energy is absorbed during the process that blue light is emitted at the center of the spiral, with double the frequency of the incoming infrared light.

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Previous to the research, the strongest known frequency doubler was a synthetic crystal called beta barium borate. The spirals fabricated in the new study are much more effective at throwing out the high-frequency light than the crystal, producing four times as much blue light during testing.

The researchers also found that the spirals exhibited a very distinctive response to polarized light, which is light that vibrates in a single plane. The amount of emitted blue light varies depending on the angle of the polarized beam – something that scientists could measure and use as a stamp of material authenticity.

Furthermore, when rotating polarized light was shone on the spirals, similarly unique emissions were observed, with the amount of blue light varying depending on whether the circularly polarized light was rotating to the left or to the right.

Overall, the nano-spirals’ unique response to infrared light would make them a good fit for use on identification or credit cards. The spiral arrays would be too small to see with the naked eye, but could be detected by a device akin to a barcode reader.

The team has already experimented with placing small arrays of nano-spirals on a glass substrate, but it would also be possible to fabricate them on other materials such as plastic or paper. The spirals themselves could also be constructed from different materials including silver and platinum. Given the small amount of metal involved, the costs of using such precious materials would actually be very low.

References:http://www.gizmag.com/

Cornell software identifies bird species from users’ photos

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merlin-bird-photo-id

A photo of a Blackburnian warbler, made ready for processing by Merlin Bird Photo ID

While there are already plenty of apps that help birdwatchers identify birds, most of them work by searching a database based on descriptions. Cornell University and the Visipedia research project’s Merlin Bird Photo ID program, however, goes further – it utilizes computer vision tech to identify birds pictured in user-supplied photos.

Users start by uploading a photo that they snapped of the bird in question, drawing a box around the animal to help the software find it, and then clicking on its bill, eye and tail to establish its orientation. They also indicate where and when they saw it.

Merlin Bird Photo ID then uses its artificial intelligence to compare data points in the photo with those from tens of thousands of photos of known species of birds – its database currently includes 400 species that are commonly seen in the US and Canada. It also takes into account the time of year and geographical location at which the photo was taken.

Within a few seconds, the software subsequently presents the user with a short list of the closest matches, including photos and song recordings.

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“Computers can process images much more efficiently than humans,” says Cornell’s Prof. Serge Belongie. “They can organize, index, and match vast constellations of visual information such as the colors of the feathers and shapes of the bill.”

The program currently manages to include the correct species within the top three results about 90 percent of the time, although its accuracy should improve with increased use. That’s because it utilizes machine learning, so it builds upon the knowledge it gains each time it processes a new photo.

Plans call for the technology to be added to the existing free Merlin Bird ID app, once it’s able to reliably identify birds in photos taken with smartphones. In the meantime, you can try it out at the project website.

References:http://www.gizmag.com/

Moky Bluetooth keyboard is also a trackpad

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moky

You can both type on Moky, and use it as a trackpad

We’ve seen a number of ideas for making Bluetooth portable keyboards that are compact yet still not frustratingly tiny – these have included devices that project virtual keys, devices that fold, and that can be rolled up. The Moky keyboard, however, takes a different approach. It saves space by allowing its keyboard area to double as a multi-touch trackpad.

According to the Seoul-based Moky company, the device uses “infrared laser sensors” to overlay an invisible trackpad on top of the keyboard. It lets users perform actions such as clicking/dragging, scrolling, swiping, pinching in and zooming out, simply by making the traditional finger movements directly above the keys.

While it isn’t clear exactly how the system works, the principle appears to be the same as that used by Continental’s “infrared curtain” technology for multi-touch displays in cars. In that case, a raised rectangular frame around the display has a series of LEDs along two adjacent sides, and a series of photodiodes along the other two. Each LED emits a beam of infrared light, which is picked up and converted into an electrical signal by the photodiode located in the corresponding spot on the opposite side of the frame.

When the user reaches through the grid of infrared light beams in a given location, their finger blocks some of the beams. Those beams’ photodiodes temporarily stop receiving light, and thus cease sending a signal. By analyzing the combination of affected photodiodes, the system can determine the location of the user’s finger relative to what’s being displayed on the screen, in real time.

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Some of Moky’s other features include pantograph (i.e: individually spring-loaded) keys, an aluminum body, a folding cover that also serves as a smartphone/tablet stand, and a rechargeable battery that should be good for a claimed three months of use per charge (based on about four hours of use per day). The keyboard utilizes Bluetooth LE, and is compatible with iOS, Android and Windows devices.

Moky is currently the subject of an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign, where a pledge of US$69 will currently get you one – when and if the keyboard reaches production. You can see it in use, in the pitch video below.

And although Moky may end up being the first true keyboard/trackpad hybrid to make it to market, this certainly isn’t the first time that the concept has been conceived of. Microsoft Research’s prototype Type-Hover-Swipe keyboard uses an array of infrared proximity sensors located between the keys to achieve the same ends, while Apple’s patent for the Fusion keyboard incorporates touch sensors in the surface of the keys.

Reference:http://www.gizmag.com/