Radio-on-a-Chip to Create Smart Networks [video]

Radio-on-a-Chip to Create Smart Networks [video]

 Credit: Amin Arbabian When I was in grade school, my parents bought me a transistor radio. It was about the size of a dictionary, but it ran on batteries and I could put it under my pillow and listen to the Baltimore Orioles’ games as I fell asleep. It was so...
New Family of Wearable Chips Cuts Power Use

New Family of Wearable Chips Cuts Power Use

Remember your old “dumb” cellphone? The one that you could charge once or twice a week, depending on how much time you spent talking on calls? Now consider your smartphone; most people have to recharge theirs every day (or maybe even more often than that)....
Open Sesame, Thanks to Your Implant

Open Sesame, Thanks to Your Implant

They chip horses, don’t they? And dogs and cats and cows and all sorts of pets and domesticated animals. Why not people, too? That’s the question posed by the folks at Dangerous Things, who have developed their xNT implantable RFID chips that you can...
Low-Power Sensor Chip Needs No Battery

Low-Power Sensor Chip Needs No Battery

Energy harvesting collects power from ambient sources, such as heat, light, or motion, and converts it into another form of energy. In most cases, it produces electricity to do useful work or to be stored for use later. One missing piece, however, is computing...