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Tag Archives: compact
Hackaday Prize 2022: Compact Solar Tracking System Doesn’t Break The Bank
If you need to squeeze every available watt out of a solar panel, you’ll probably want to look into a solar tracking system. Unfortunately, they are usually quite large, heavy, and expensive. As an alternative, [JP Gleyzes] has put together a DIY solar tracking system that aims to address these issues.
Starting with a 100 W flexible solar panel purchased during a Black Friday sale, [JP] first created a simple frame using 20 mm PVC tubing and a few 3D printed brackets. It mounts on a wooden base with a printed worm gear rotation mechanism, powered by a stepper motor. The tilt is a handled by a lead screw made from a threaded rod, connected between the wooden base and the top of the solar panel, and is also driven by a stepper motor.
For even more efficiency, [JP] also created an MPPT charge controller with companion app using an ESP32, modified 20 A buck converter, and current sensor module. The ESP32 also controls the stepper motors. The optimum angle for the solar panel determined using the date, time, and the system’s GPS position. [JP] had also created a simple Android app to calibrate the panels’ start position.
This project is a finalist in the Planet-Friendly Power challenge of the 2022 Hackaday Prize, and all the details to build your own are available on your project page. Looking at the size of the system, we suspect future iterations could be even smaller.
Keychron’s latest keyboard is a more compact way to get your numpad fix
Keychron’s latest wired mechanical keyboard is the Q5. It uses a similar construction to the excellent Q1 and Q2 keyboards that have proceeded it, but with a larger layout that includes a numpad. It’s not a traditional full-size keyboard, but the idea with its 1800 layout (aka a 96-percent layout) is that it offers almost all of the keys a user might need while still being relatively compact.
“There’s currently no stock full-metal custom 1800 layout mechanical keyboard on the market,” said Keychron COO Paul Tan. “1800 layout saves about an inch of space from a full-size keyboard, without having to remove many keys. It’s the smallest you can go, without getting rid of the number pad.” The Keychron Q5 is available as a fully-assembled keyboard for $185, or you can get a “barebones” version without switches or keycaps for $165. Models with a programmable volume knob cost $10 extra.
The specs of the Q5 will be familiar to anyone who’s followed Keychron’s recent forays into premium mechanical keyboards. It’s hot-swappable, meaning you can install or replace its switches without the need for soldering, and its keys are remappable thanks to its QMK firmware. It includes keycaps for both Mac and Windows in the box, and there’s a physical slider to switch between the two operating systems. The Q5 connects to your machine via a detachable USB-C cable.
Most importantly, the Keychron Q5 uses a similar construction to what made the Q1 and Q2 such joys to type on. Its case is aluminum, and its circuit board uses a so-called gasket-mounted design to give it a small amount of flexibility while typing. This design greatly impacts the feel of Keychron’s Q-series boards. It uses screw-in stabilizers to minimize the rattle from larger keys like the space bar, and included silicon pads are designed to reduce any pinging noises while typing.
If you’ve held off on Keychron’s excellent premium mechanical keyboards until now because you just can’t give up that traditional numpad, then the Q5 could be a great entrypoint.
A Rogue Black Hole Roaming Our Galaxy May Have Just Been Confirmed
The first detection of what appears to be a rogue black hole drifting through the Milky Way, revealed earlier this year, just got important validation.
A second team of scientists, conducting a separate, independent analysis, has reached almost the same finding, adding weight to the idea that we’ve potentially identified a rogue black hole wandering the galaxy.
Led by astronomers Casey Lam and Jessica Lu of the University of California, Berkeley, the new work has arrived at a slightly different conclusion, however. Given the mass range of the object, it could be a neutron star, rather than a black hole, according to the new study.
Either way, though, this means that we may have a new tool for searching for ‘dark’, compact objects that are otherwise undetectable in our galaxy, by measuring the way their gravitational fields warp and distort the light of distant stars as they pass in front of them, called gravitational microlensing.
“This is the first free-floating black hole or neutron star discovered with gravitational microlensing,” Lu says.
“With microlensing, we’re able to probe these lonely, compact objects and weigh them. I think we have opened a new window onto these dark objects, which can’t be seen any other way.”
Black holes are theorized to be the collapsed cores of massive stars that have reached the ends of their lives and ejected their outer material. Such black hole precursor stars – bigger than 30 times the mass of the Sun – are thought to live relatively short lives.
According to our best estimates, therefore, there should be as many as 10 million to 1 billion stellar-mass black holes out there, drifting peacefully and quietly through the galaxy.
But black holes are called black holes for a reason. They emit no light that we can detect, unless material is falling onto them, a process that generates X-rays from the space around the black hole. So if a black hole is just hanging out, doing nothing, we have almost no way of detecting it.
Almost. What a black hole does have is an extreme gravitational field, so powerful that it warps any light that travels through it. For us, as observers, that means we might see a distant star appear brighter, and in a different position, than how it appears normally.
On 2 June 2011, that’s exactly what happened. Two separate microlensing surveys – the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE) and Microlensing Observations in Astrophysics (MOA) – independently recorded an event that ended up peaking on July 20.
This event was named MOA-2011-BLG-191/OGLE-2011-BLG-0462 (shortened to OB110462), and because it was unusually long and unusually bright, scientists homed in for a closer look.
“How long the brightening event lasts is a hint of how massive the foreground lens bending the light of the background star is,” Lam explains.
“Long events are more likely due to black holes. It’s not a guarantee, though, because the duration of the brightening episode not only depends on how massive the foreground lens is, but also on how fast the foreground lens and background star are moving relative to each other.
“However, by also getting measurements of the apparent position of the background star, we can confirm whether the foreground lens really is a black hole.”
Illustration showing how Hubble views a microlensing event. (NASA, ESA, STScI, Joseph Olmsted)
In this case, observations of the region were taken on eight separate occasions using the Hubble Space Telescope, up until 2017.
From a deep analysis of this data, a team of astronomers led by Kailash Sahu of the Space Telescope Science Institute concluded that the culprit was a microlensing black hole clocking in at 7.1 times the mass of the Sun, at a distance of 5,153 light-years away.
Lu and Lam’s analysis now adds more data from Hubble, as recently captured as 2021. Their team found that the object is somewhat smaller, between 1.6 and 4.4 times the mass of the Sun.
This means that the object could be a neutron star. That’s also the collapsed core of a massive star, one that started out between 8 and 30 times the mass of the Sun.
The resulting object is supported by something called neutron degeneracy pressure, whereby neutrons don’t want to occupy the same space; this prevents it from completely collapsing into a black hole. Such an object has a mass limit of around 2.4 times the mass of the Sun.
Interestingly, no black holes have been detected below around 5 times the mass of the Sun. This is referred to as the lower mass gap. If the work of Lam and her colleagues is correct, that means we could have the detection of a lower mass gap object on our hands, which is very tantalizing.
The two teams came back with different masses for the lensing object because their analyses returned different results for the relative motions of the compact object and the lensed star.
Sahu and his team found that the compact object is moving at a relatively high velocity of 45 kilometers per second, as the result of a natal kick: a lopsided supernova explosion can send the collapsed core speeding away.
Lam and her colleagues got 30 kilometers per second, however. This result, they say, suggests that perhaps a supernova explosion is not necessary for the birth of a black hole.
Right now, it’s impossible to draw a firm conclusion from OB110462 about which estimate is correct, but astronomers expect to learn a lot from the discovery of more of these objects in the future.
“Whatever it is, the object is the first dark stellar remnant discovered wandering through the galaxy unaccompanied by another star,” Lam says.
The research has been accepted into The Astrophysical Journal, and is available on arXiv.
Microsoft’s compact Surface Laptop Go updated with 11th Gen Intel processor
The most compact and affordable entry in Microsoft’s lineup of Surface Laptops — the Surface Laptop Go — is being updated with a newer chip as well as an “improved” webcam and thermals. The Surface Laptop Go 2 is powered by an 11th Gen Intel Core i5-1135G7 processor (up from 10th Gen in the previous model), with prices starting at $599.99 for a model with 4GB of RAM and 128GB of storage.
The original Surface Laptop Go was released in 2020 as Microsoft’s attempt to compete with Chromebooks. It had a lower starting price than the rest of the Surface Laptop lineup and a smaller 12.4-inch touch display that maintained Microsoft’s signature 3:2 aspect ratio (resolution sits at 1536 x 1024). Little of this has changed for its successor, which measures in at just 10.95 x 8.12 x 0.62 inches and weighs a little under 2.5 pounds.
That said, there have been some tweaks with the Surface Laptop Go 2. Its starting price has gone up by $50, likely because Microsoft has cut the base version that shipped with just 64GB of storage. It’s also available in a new green / gray “sage” color, which joins the preexisting blue, sandstone, and platinum options. The rated battery life has gone from 13 hours to up to 13.5 hours, and the laptop is also shipping with Windows 11 this time around.
Finally, Microsoft says that the Surface Laptop Go 2 has more replaceable components, including the keyboard and trackpad, display, and battery; though they’re designed to be replaced by one of Microsoft’s authorized repair providers.
There are fewer tangible details about the other upgrades, which we’ll likely only get a better idea for once we’ve used the laptop ourselves. Microsoft’s press release boasts that the Surface Laptop Go 2 has “quieter, improved thermals that make it easier to focus” as well as an “improved HD camera.” But the webcam’s resolution continues to be 720p, same as the previous model, which suggests its upgrades are more about image processing than raw resolution.
Otherwise, this is a very similar laptop to its predecessor. There’s still a fingerprint sensor built into the power button on select models, the ports are the same (one USB-A, one USB-C, a headphone jack, and a proprietary Surface port for charging), and it still offers dual microphones and Wi-Fi 6. There’s no mention of a backlit keyboard, which was a primary complaint with the first Surface Laptop Go.
All models of the laptop come with the same Intel Core i5 processor, but there’s a range of different RAM and storage configurations available. Prices start at $599.99 for a consumer model with 4GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, rising to $699.99 for 8GB RAM and 128GB of storage, or $799.99 for 8GB RAM and 256GB storage. Prices for these models are $100 higher on the commercial side, where there’s also an additional 16GB RAM / 256GB storage version available for $1,099.99. Preorders open today, with shipping due to start on June 7th.
We weren’t blown away by the original Surface Laptop Go. That’s not because it was a bad laptop but because it wasn’t competitive with other devices at its price point. With its higher starting price, the Surface Laptop Go 2 could face a similar challenge.
Unique quantum material could enable ultra-powerful, compact computers
Information in computers is transmitted through semiconductors by the movement of electrons and stored in the direction of the electron spin in magnetic materials. To shrink devices while improving their performance—a goal of an emerging field called spin-electronics (“spintronics”)—researchers are searching for unique materials that combine both quantum properties. Writing in Nature Materials, a team of chemists and physicists at Columbia finds a strong link between electron transport and magnetism in a material called chromium sulfide bromide (CrSBr).
Created in the lab of Chemist Xavier Roy, CrSBr is a so-called van der Waals crystal that can be peeled into stackable, 2D layers that are just a few atoms thin. Unlike related materials that are quickly destroyed by oxygen and water, CrSBr crystals are stable at ambient conditions. These crystals also maintain their magnetic properties at the relatively high temperature of -280F, avoiding the need for expensive liquid helium cooled to a temperature of -450F,
“CrSBr is infinitely easier to work with than other 2D magnets, which lets us fabricate novel devices and test their properties,” said Evan Telford, a postdoc in the Roy lab who graduated with a PhD in physics from Columbia in 2020. Last year, colleagues Nathan Wilson and Xiaodong Xu at the University of Washington and Xiaoyang Zhu at Columbia found a link between magnetism and how CrSBr responds to light. In the current work, Telford led the effort to explore its electronic properties.
The team used an electric field to study CrSBr layers across different electron densities, magnetic fields, and temperatures—different parameters that can be adjusted to produce different effects in a material. As electronic properties in CrSBr changed, so did its magnetism.
“Semiconductors have tunable electronic properties. Magnets have tunable spin configurations. In CrSBr, these two knobs are combined,” said Roy. “That makes CrSBr attractive for both fundamental research and for potential spintronics application.”
Magnetism is a difficult property to measure directly, particularly as the size of the material shrinks, explained Telford, but it’s easy to measure how electrons move with a parameter called resistance. In CrSBr, resistance can serve as a proxy for otherwise unobservable magnetic states. “That’s very powerful,” said Roy, especially as researchers look to one day build chips out of such 2D magnets, which could be used for quantum computing and to store massive amounts of data in a small space.
The link between the material’s electronic and magnetic properties was due to defects in the layers—for the team, a lucky break, said Telford. “People usually want the ‘cleanest’ material possible. Our crystals had defects, but without those, we wouldn’t have observed this coupling,” he said.
From here, the Roy lab is experimenting with ways to grow peelable van der Waals crystals with deliberate defects, to improve the ability to fine-tune the material’s properties. They are also exploring whether different combinations of elements could function at higher temperatures while still retaining those valuable combined properties.
Visualising atomic structure and magnetism of 2-D magnetic insulators
More information:
Evan J. Telford et al, Coupling between magnetic order and charge transport in a two-dimensional magnetic semiconductor, Nature Materials (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41563-022-01245-x
Evan J. Telford et al, Coupling between magnetic order and charge transport in a two-dimensional magnetic semiconductor, Nature Materials (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41563-022-01245-x
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Roland’s new Aira Compact range puts TR drums, 303 basslines and Juno synth sounds in your pocket
Roland’s Aira instrument range is being expanded once again with the launch of three ‘Compact’ instruments that draw on the company’s rich heritage: the T-8 Beat Machine; J-6 Chord Synthesizer; and E-4 Voice Tweaker.
It can be difficult to work out what distinguishes an Aira product from a standard Roland one – the Aira microsite, for example, features the TR-8S drum machine but not the TR-6S, its slimmed-down close cousin – but it’s pretty clear what the Compact range is all about.
These are “fun, affordable, and easy to learn” boxes that are designed to be used either individually or together, in a similar way to Korg’s Volcas. This being Roland, though, everything is completely digital.
Once again, Roland’s Analog Circuit Behaviour (ACB) technology is in play, and each model comes with a built-in rechargeable battery that promises plenty of run time.
The T-8 looks like the most straightforward of the three: it’s a six-track drum machine that includes sounds from the TR-808, TR-909 and TR-606. You also get a bass part based on the TB-303, taking the device tentatively into groovebox territory.
There’s a sequencer, obviously – this can run to up to 32 steps – with features such as step loop, pattern shift and probability enabling you to add variation to your grooves. You can tweak your bass sound, and there are reverb/delay send effects.
The J-6 Chord Synthesizer is arguably a more curious proposition – it blends a Juno-60 synth engine (presumably the same one as you’ll find in the new full-size Juno-X) with a chord sequencer. It’s very designed to be used by non-players; 100 chord sets are included, with each enabling you to trigger chords and create progressions using the built-in keyboard. You can also dial in variations (arpeggios and guitar-style playing, for example).
Of course, you could just use the J-6 as a synth (like the other Aira Compacts, it has MIDI connectivity) though beyond choosing the sound itself, editing is limited to filter and envelope controls. Again, there are also delay and reverb effects.
Finally, we come to the E-4 Voice Tweaker, a compact vocal effects box that promises everything from standard processors to full-on vocal transformers. There are pitch and formant sliders for instant gender switching and robot voice effects (among other things), and you also get the customary automatic pitching/harmonising and vocoder options.
You can capture your performances with a 24-second looper, while the Scatter knob enables you to dial in slice effects.
The three Aira Compact devices are available now priced at $200 each. Find out more on the Roland website.
Compact Wearable “Lab on the Skin” Continuously Monitors Glucose, Alcohol, and Lactate
The device can be worn on the upper arm while the wearer goes about their day. Credit: Laboratory for Nanobioelectronics / UC San Diego
Imagine being able to measure your blood sugar levels, know if you’ve had too much alcohol to drink, and track your muscle fatigue during a workout, all in one small device worn on your skin. Engineers at the University of California San Diego (UCSD) have developed a prototype of such a wearable that can continuously monitor several health stats—glucose, alcohol, and lactate levels—simultaneously in real-time.
“This is like a complete lab on the skin.” — Joseph Wang
The multi-tasking device is only about the size of a stack of six quarters. It is applied to the skin through a Velcro-like patch of microscopic needles, or microneedles, that are each about one-fifth the width of a human hair. Wearing the device is not painful—the microneedles barely penetrate the surface of the skin to sense biomolecules in interstitial fluid, which is the fluid surrounding the cells beneath the skin. The device can be worn on the upper arm and sends data wirelessly to a custom smartphone app.
Researchers at the UC San Diego Center for Wearable Sensors describe their device in a paper published today (May 9, 2022) in the journal Nature Biomedical Engineering.
The device can be worn on the upper arm and sends data wirelessly to a custom smartphone app. Credit: Laboratory for Nanobioelectronics / UC San Diego
“This is like a complete lab on the skin,” said center director Joseph Wang, a professor of nanoengineering at UC San Diego and co-corresponding author of the paper. “It is capable of continuously measuring multiple biomarkers at the same time, allowing users to monitor their health and wellness as they perform their daily activities.”
Most commercial health monitors, such as continuous glucose monitors for patients with diabetes, only measure one signal. The problem with that, the researchers said, is that it leaves out information that could help people with diabetes, for example, manage their disease more effectively. Monitoring alcohol levels is useful because drinking alcohol can lower glucose levels. Knowing both levels can help people with diabetes prevent their blood sugar from dropping too low after having a drink. Combining information about lactate, which can be monitored during exercise as a biomarker for muscle fatigue, is also useful because physical activity influences the body’s ability to regulate glucose.
“With our wearable, people can see the interplay between their glucose spikes or dips with their diet, exercise, and drinking of alcoholic beverages. That could add to their quality of life as well,” said Farshad Tehrani, a nanoengineering Ph.D. student in Wang’s lab and one of the co-first authors of the study.
Microneedles merged with electronics
The wearable consists of a microneedle patch connected to a case of electronics. Different enzymes on the tips of the microneedles react with glucose, alcohol and lactate in interstitial fluid. These reactions generate small electric currents, which are analyzed by electronic sensors and communicated wirelessly to an app that the researchers developed. The results are displayed in real time on a smartphone.
The disposable microneedle patch detaches from the reusable electronic case. Credit: Laboratory for Nanobioelectronics / UC San Diego
An advantage of using microneedles is that they directly sample the interstitial fluid, and research has shown that biochemical levels measured in that fluid correlate well with levels in blood.
“We’re starting at a really good place with this technology in terms of clinical validity and relevance,” said Patrick Mercier, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at UC San Diego and co-corresponding author of the paper. “That lowers the barriers to clinical translation.”
The microneedle patch, which is disposable, can be detached from the electronic case for easy replacement. The electronic case, which is reusable, houses the battery, electronic sensors, wireless transmitter, and other electronic components. The device can be recharged on any wireless charging pad used for phones and smartwatches.
The device can be recharged on an off-the-shelf wireless charging pad. Credit: Laboratory for Nanobioelectronics / UC San Diego
Integrating all these components together into one small, wireless wearable was one of the team’s biggest challenges. It also required some clever design and engineering to combine the reusable electronics, which must stay dry, with the microneedle patch, which gets exposed to biological fluid.
“The beauty of this is that it is a fully integrated system that someone can wear without being tethered to benchtop equipment,” said Mercier, who is also the co-director of the UC San Diego Center for Wearable Sensors.
Testing
The wearable was tested on five volunteers, who wore the device on their upper arm, while exercising, eating a meal, and drinking a glass of wine. The device was used to continuously monitor the volunteers’ glucose levels simultaneously with either their alcohol or lactate levels. The glucose, alcohol and lactate measurements taken by the device closely matched the measurements taken respectively by a commercial blood glucose monitor, Breathalyzer, and blood lactate measurements performed in the lab.
Next steps
Farshad Tehrani and fellow co-first author Hazhir Teymourian, who is a former postdoctoral researcher in Wang’s lab, co-founded a startup company called AquilX to further develop the technology for commercialization. Next steps include testing and improving upon how long the microneedle patch can last before being replaced. The company is also excited about the possibility of adding more sensors to the device to monitor medication levels in patients and other health signals.
Reference: “An integrated wearable microneedle array for the continuous monitoring of multiple biomarkers in interstitial fluid” by Farshad Tehrani, Hazhir Teymourian, Brian Wuerstle, Jonathan Kavner, Ravi Patel, Allison Furmidge, Reza Aghavali, Hamed Hosseini-Toudeshki, Christopher Brown, Fangyu Zhang, Kuldeep Mahato, Zhengxing Li, Abbas Barfidokht, Lu Yin, Paul Warren, Nickey Huang, Zina Patel, Patrick P. Mercier and Joseph Wang, 9 May 2022, Nature Biomedical Engineering.
DOI: 10.1038/s41551-022-00887-1
Funding: NIH/National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke
Sony brings a compact, flagship smartphone to the US
Enlarge / The Sony Xperia 5 III, in green.
Sony is bringing a $1,000 flagship smartphone, the Xperia 5 III, to the US market. Calling the device “new,” however, is a bit of a stretch, as the phone was announced nine months ago.
As you’d expect from the price, the Xperia 5 III is a high-end flagship. It has a Snapdragon 888 SoC, 8GB of RAM, 128GB of storage, a 4500 mAh battery, and a 6.1-inch, 120 Hz, 2520×1080 OLED display. There are three rear cameras—a 12 MP main camera, a 12 MP ultrawide, and a 12 MP 3x telephoto. At just 68 mm wide, the Xperia 5 III is one of the most compact Android phones on the market. It has a very tall 21:9 display, but in terms of width, it’s only 4 mm bigger than an iPhone 13 Mini. Although it ships with Android 11, an Android 12 update is due sometime soon.
Sony
Enlarge / The rear cameras.
Sony definitely marches to the beat of its own drum when it comes to design. As usual, Sony’s phone is aggressively rectangular and has a handsome, minimalist look. The front bezel is a unique addition. Rather than a notch or a hole punch, Sony went with a big bezel to give the camera some room to breathe, making for an uninterrupted display. The company also put a big blank area on the bottom of the phone so the front would be symmetrical. Other nonstandard design decisions include a side-mounted fingerprint reader, a hardware camera button, a microSD slot, and even a 3.5 mm headphone jack.
For most US consumers, this release serves as their only reminder that Sony still makes smartphones at all. If you couldn’t tell from the long US delay, the company doesn’t target the US with its smartphone business. After seeing LG throw in the towel on Android after years of suffering, you have to wonder about Sony’s future in the market. Sony’s mobile division did post its first profitable quarter in a long time in April 2021, but the news is not all positive; the profitability was also on some of its lowest phone shipments in years. The division only managed to balance the books by cutting costs, and sales are still on a massive downward trend since 2014. Still, though, a compact Android phone is here if you want one.
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Leaked images of the Google Pixel 6A show a more compact device with no headphone jack
Rendered images of the Google Pixel 6A have been leaked by reliable leaker Steve Hemmerstoffer (@OnLeaks), and give us a glimpse at what the midrange device may look like, first reported by 91Mobiles.
The rendered Pixel 6A, which belongs to the budget-friendly Pixel A-series lineup, looks almost identical to the standard Pixel 6. It seems to sport the same black camera strip on its rear that houses two cameras and a flash, along with a hole-punch selfie camera on the front. The bottom of the device appears to have a USB-C port, as well as a speaker and a microphone.
As pointed out by 9to5Google, there appears to be no fingerprint sensor on the outside of the device — this might mean the scanner is placed beneath the screen just like the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro, which Google recently issued an update for in an attempt to improve the scanner’s performance issues.
A headphone jack also appears to be absent from the Pixel 6A. If the rendered images are accurate, the Pixel 6A could be the first midrange Pixel device to come without one — previously, the Pixel 5A, Pixel 4A, and Pixel 3A all had headphone jacks, as opposed to their Pixel 5, Pixel 4, and Pixel 3 counterparts.
The Pixel 6A may also be a lot more compact than the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro, measuring at just 152.2 x 71.8. x 8.7mm with a 6.2-inch display (via 91Mobiles). This is quite a bit smaller when compared to the size of a vanilla Pixel 6, which is 158.6 x 74.8 x 8.9mm with a 6.4-inch display.
There’s no word on when the Pixel 6A will be released — after all, the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro only came out last month — so we’ll probably have to wait a while to see some official images of the device.