Underwater WiFi

With our current technology, divers use hand signals, radio, or acoustic or digital light signals to communicate. While these allow effective communication, they have their limitations. Acoustic signals support long distances, but with a very limited data rate. Visible light can travel far and carry lots of data, the problem is that the narrow light beams require a clear line of sight between transmitters and receivers. Radio, meanwhile, can only carry data through short distances underwater. At the moment streaming video from under the sea simply isn't accessible. Researchers, from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia, built an underwater wireless system that they've dubbed Aqua-Fi. Aqua-Fi supports internet services, such as multimedia message sending via either LEDs or lasers.

The LEDs provide a low-energy short-distance communication option, while lasers need more power but can carry data further. The researchers built the prototype using green LEDs and a 520-nanometer laser. Both were used to send data from a small computer to a light detector connected to another computer. The first computer converted photos and videos into a series of 1s and 0s, which were then transferred via a light beam that turns on and off at very high speeds to transmit the signal. The light detector senses the variation in the light speed and translates it back into the computer language of 1s and 0s. This is converted by the receiving computer into the streamed footage or other multimedia. During their tests, the team was able to record maximum data transfer speed of 2.11 megabytes per second and an average delay of 1.00 millisecond for a round trip.

More information:

https://interestingengineering.com/worlds-first-underwater-wifi-is-set-up

MR Headset Patent by Apple that Projects Images on Eyeballs

This week Apple Inc. filed a patent for a new type of hybrid VR/AR device that does away with conventional screens in favour of a Dynamic Focus 3D Display that projects images directly unto the users retinas. Apple believes that current VR and AR hardware could be responsible for all types of unnecessary eyestrain as a result of accommodation-convergence mismatch, a problem that arises when a VR or AR system creates virtual content that does not match the focal depth expected by the users brain, often resulting in nausea, headaches, and other discomforts.

Simply put, your eyes are attempting to adjust to the depth of objects in both the foreground as well as the background simultaneously. Apple’s approach would remove displays altogether, eliminating any chance of accommodation-convergence mismatch by using a direct retinal projector system to accurately focus each individual pixel as they are projected unto the eyes of the user. While it is true Apple has a long-standing track record of filing patents for outrageous tech that almost never hit the production floor, there may be some hope for this device.

More information:

https://vrscout.com/news/apple-patent-mr-headset-retina-projection/

BCI Restores Sense of Touch to a Paralyzed Man

Researchers recently discovered that a person with a spinal cord injury can use a brain-computer interface to simultaneously reanimate both motor functions and sense of touch. For the first time in 10 years, Ian Burkhart is able to move his arm and feel what he is touching. Burkhart, who suffered a spinal cord injury (SCI) in 2010 leaving him paralyzed, was the first participant in a five-year study of Battelle's NeuroLife neural bypass technology, a project Battelle has worked on in conjunction with doctors at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. 

When the chip was placed on the surface of Ian’s motor cortex in 2014, it was not known that the signals related to object touch could be observed because of the paralysis. However, analysis has shown that subperceptual touch following a spinal cord injury affects Burkhart’s motor cortex even though there is essentially a block from the nerves in his arms and their connection back to the brain. Importantly, this subperceptual signal can be detected in the brain, rerouted via the brain-computer interface, and sent back to a wearable haptic system to restore the sense of touch.

More information:

https://www.mddionline.com/how-brain-computer-interface-can-restore-sense-touch-paralyzed-man