Wireless Power: Charging from a Distance using Magnetic Resonance

Unlike the inductive Qi standard, Cota uses magnetic resonance
to remotely charge several electronic devices simultaneously at
distances of up to 10 meters.

As reported by TechCrunch: Wireless power. It’s less sci-fi sounding than it once was, thanks to induction charging like that based on the Qi standard, but that’s still a tech that essentially requires contact, if not incredibly close proximity.

Magnetic resonance is another means to achieve wireless power, and perfect for much higher-demand applications, like charging cars. But there’s been very little work done in terms of building a solution that can power your everyday devices in a way that doesn't require thought or changing the way we use our devices dramatically.

That’s where Cota by Ossia comes in. The startup is the brainchild of physicist Hatem Zeine, who decided to focus on delivering wireless power in a way that was commercially viable, both for large-scale industrial applications and for consumer use. Zeine has been hard at work developing his wireless power technology and refining its delivery for over a decade now, and has built Ossia under wraps, managing to raise an impressive $3.2 million along the way while also keeping the startup almost completely invisible to the outside world.

Today, however, Zeine is ready to show what Ossia can do, and he’s presenting the first public demo of the Cota wireless charging prototype on-stage at Disrupt and revealing his company Ossia publicly for the first time. Despite the fact that no one’s heard of Ossia, the Cota prototype in its current form already managed to deliver power wirelessly to devices over distances of around 10 feet, delivering around 10 percent of the total original source power to recipient devices using the same unlicensed spectrum that powers Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Zigbee and other wireless communication standards.

“I got fascinated by electromagnetic radiation, the way that light and optics and radio waves are the same thing,” Zeine said, explaining how he got interested in the subject while studying physics as a student. “And I got thinking about ‘what can you really do beyond this?’ there is something about the linearity of physics and the non-linearity of physics. most people are familiar with the linear version, which is the common sense version, where two apples are twice the weight of one, for instance.”

“In wave theory and electromagnetic systems, you don’t get linearities everywhere,” he added, describing the science behind Cota. “There are situations where double could mean for more, like double could mean squared, or 3 plus 3 apples could result in a net total of 9 apples, so to speak. When you move from the linear version to the power version, things happen that were quite surprising.”

Zeine started doing computer simulations to figure out what he was on to, but says unlike Thomas Edison, for example, who started with a problem and tried to solve it but came up with many failures before success, he started out with a solution and found many problems that it does solve, including questions around health, safety, interference with other wireless signals, delivering power to multiple devices, non-line of site, around and behind walls and more. “I was always thinking ‘What’s the catch?’,” he said, “But sometimes an invention just solves the problem and goes all the way. This was one of them, we had something here that was much, much different than what people expect.”

When Zeine then decided to turn Cota’s wireless charging into a company, he faced understandable and considerable skepticism. Naysayers suggested he couldn't deliver wireless power safely, or with adequate efficiency to be useful, or consistently, or any number of objections you yourself are probably cycling through at this moment. Skepticism aside, Zeine stuck to his guns and set about commercializing his discovery. In 2007, Zeine filed his first patent for the tech, formed Ossia in 2008 and continued to file patents, and he says now the company has a much deeper understanding of how it works. They've built the prototype they’re demoing on stage, and have another in the works to debut later this year.

“What we’re doing uses the same frequencies as Wi-Fi,” he explained. “It’s the unlicensed spectrum that’s used by Wi-Fi, and many phones, Bluetooth and Zigbee devices and so on in our lives. The nice thing about this frequency is that it’s just the sweet spot for our technology for distance, safety, for the size of the antennas and the hardware that we use, it’s just a perfect level. Also it’s well understood, since people have had Wi-Fi in their homes for a long time now.”

Typical remote wireless charging has used inductive power
transmission - similar to forces found in a transformer.  However
power delivered is inversely proportional to the distance between
the receiver and the transmitter.

Obviously health and safety is going to be a foreground concern when it comes to new wireless tech of any kind, but something that’s designed to be able to provide enough energy to power up devices will definitely raise eyebrows. Aside from being at a late stage in terms of gaining FCC clearance, Zeine says Ossia also benefits from using the same kind of spectrum that Wi-Fi broadcasts at, and says Cota offers the same kind of health risks that Wi-Fi in-home does. Academic research on how much that actually is may differ, but consumers definitely seem willing to accept the risks associated with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and other similar specifications.

“Cota is the only wireless power technology that can deliver one watt of power at a distance of 30 ft safely,” Zeine said on stage today at Disrupt, highlighting range as well as health and safety. During his presentation, Zeine showed an iPhone 5 being charged remotely from his version one prototype wireless power transmitter, which was greeted by plenty of applause from those in attendance.

Current wirelessly charged smartphone devices are required
to be in close proximity of the wireless signal, such as the
powermat shown above.  While the device doesn't need to be
connected, it does need to be lying on the mat in order to get
an adequate charge. 

The next step for Cota is delivering a commercial-grade product capable of replacing the numerous wired power connections for sensors and monitors in sensitive facilities like oil and gas refineries with wirelessly powered devices, which decreases risk by minimizing the number of potential opportunities there are for generating sparks, since there are fewer live cables lying around. Commercialized versions should be ready to ship in the next couple of months, Zeine says, with consumerized versions following in 2015. Neither would’ve been possible in terms of cost alone 20 years ago, he adds, but advances in the tech of Cota system components have made it possible to do with thousands what would once have cost millions.

Long-term, the vision of Zeine and Ossia is one where you’re never out of wireless charging range – charging networks spanning home, public spaces and offices would make it possible to build devices like phones and remotes with only small batteries, that are constantly topped off and that never need to be plugged in. He says the aim is not just to disrupt the battery, but eventually even to eliminate the concept of “charging” as a conscious act altogether.

How Fleets Use Social Media to Recruit, Retain Drivers

Lincoln, Neb. - based Crete Carrier Corp., which has nearly 4,000
trucks and more than 35,000 followers, uses distinct phone numbers
and websites URL when it posts job opportunities on Facebook.

As reported by CCJ Digital: Charles Duhigg’s best-selling book, “the Power of Habit,” explains a simple scientific equation of habit formation that is pre-programmed into our brains: cue, routine, reward.

This “habit loop” occurs so frequently and naturally that it might be easy to miss. If your phone chirps during a meeting (the cue), you glance down to read the new message (the routine) that shows a Facebook friend has commented on your status, and you enjoy a mild rush of endorphins (the reward).

Changing or otherwise improving habits is the core of any business strategy. Driver safety is all about identifying and improving driving habits. Marketing means to increase brand awareness and influence buying habits.

Social media has become an essential strategic tool for influencing a market audience’s habits. The point of using Facebook – at least for transportation companies – is to become part of the existing social habits of drivers, customers and other prospects.

Driver recruiting
Drivers are a fleet’s primary Facebook audience. More than 96 percent of company drivers have a Facebook account, according to Randall-Reilly Market Intelligence. For many carriers, Facebook has become the go-to resource for drivers looking to change careers.
“(Drivers) look there often when they are researching a company,” says John Elliott, president of Lansing, Mich.-based Load One, a 350-truck expedited hauler.

Elliott feels that Facebook is most useful to help prospective drivers understand the company’s culture. While some carriers use Facebook to promote job opportunities directly, Load One has taken a more indirect – but perhaps more effective – strategy for recruiting.

Celadon - a 3,000 truck diversified carrier based in Indianapolis
sees Facebook's value as a community where drivers can network
and make friends.

The carrier – which has more than 5,800 followers – uses Facebook to recognize all new driver hires, driver birthdays, community charitable work, company events and other aspects that showcase its culture. Load One receives several job inquiries each day through Facebook, Elliott says.

However, Facebook can be a double-edged sword: People often use corporate pages to complain or spread negative information, which Elliott says has to be addressed quickly. Also, drivers and others that ask questions expect a quick response, he says.

Celadon – a 3,000-truck diversified carrier based in Indianapolis – sees Facebook’s value as a community where drivers can network and make friends. It also uses Facebook for recruiting, but in a more indirect way: Drivers do most of the talking and sharing of company information.

“At least (drivers) will know our name if they are looking,” says Allie Whalen, marketing manager.
Lincoln, Neb.-based Crete Carrier Corp., which has nearly 4,000 trucks and more than 35,000 followers, uses distinct phone numbers and website URLs when it posts job opportunities on Facebook to monitor the page’s recruiting effectiveness, says Justin Gibson, web designer.

Facebook also can be a valuable driver retention tool – who doesn't like to be recognized along with their friends and peers? – and can help drivers feel connected to the fleet while isolated on the road.

For Celadon, the most popular posts are those that highlight events taking place at the office, as drivers get to know the staff and feel more involved and included, Whalen says.

Each month, the company recognizes drivers who achieve the top performances in on-time delivery, idling, mileage and other categories, none of which are announced ahead of time. The winning drivers are routed through headquarters and featured in Facebook videos and short articles that explain how they earned the recognition.

Driving engagement
Many strategies can be used to increase engagement with Facebook users and influence the audience’s “buying” habits in areas such as safety, performance, health and fitness.

One way Celadon tries to increase engagement is by asking drivers to submit scenery pictures, the best of which are included in the company’s newsletter. Celadon also is developing a new driver portal through blogs, community posts and social media feeds.

To grow its Facebook presence, Load One posts a sign at all company events to remind people to check for their photos on the company’s page.

Crete periodically runs ads directly through Facebook that can be targeted to a certain demographic such as truck drivers. It also has simple contests where community members can like a post to enter.

While social media presents many opportunities for a fleet to broaden its influence, it can be time-consuming and difficult to manage. A variety of online software applications such as Sprout social can be used to manage social media activities, increasing efficiency and providing useful tools and analytics to engage users in this new and fast-moving world.

PayPal Debuts Beacon, A Bluetooth Device For Hands-Free Check Ins And Payments

As reported by TechCrunch: One of David Marcus’s biggest challenges when taking on the role of President of PayPal was extending the platform into point of sale, and making it easier to pay with PayPal than swiping your credit card. But changing consumer behavior is an enormously difficult task. So he thought that the only thing more alluring than swiping a card is simply doing nothing when you check out of a store. Today the company is one step closer to making this a reality. PayPal is debuting Beacon, a new add-on hardware device for merchants that leverages Bluetooth technology to enable consumers to pay at stores completely hands-free.

When thinking through the problem, PayPal played with geo-location leveraging GPS and Wi-Fi for iOS and Android. These technologies are what powers Square’s hands free payment system 'Pay with Square'. But they found that it ended up being a poor experience for the consumer because it sucked the battery life out of their phones.

Plus Marcus tells us that the company wanted to find a solution that would scale across point-of-sale systems.

PayPal began experimenting with Bluetooth Low Energy (aka BLE), which allows connected devices to communicate with each other while keeping the energy consumption by the devices at a very low level. Last June, PayPal recruited some of its best engineers and designers (and brought on a few hardware experts as well, says Marcus), including Mike Mettler, Hasty Granbery and Josh Bleecher Snyder to start developing the connected device. The initial goal was to develop a prototype that would leverage BLW to enable a transaction to take place without having an app running, without GPS being turned on, and even without phone signal for those places with thick concrete walls.

It’s important to note that in iOS 7, Apple is debuting iBeacon, which could provide similar services for apps. But VP of global product Hill Ferguson maintains that this does not extend to Android, and Beacon will work for any smartphone.

Beacon was developed, and started being tested on PayPal’s San Jose campus in January. So what is Beacon? Essentially it is a small hardware device, that runs on its own WiFi, plugs into an outlet and serves as a ‘beacon’ to other connected devices. Any store running compatible point of sale systems, including Erply, Leaf, Leapset, Micros, NCR, ShopKeep and Vend, will simply plug a PayPal Beacon device in a power outlet in their store, and the device can be integrated. The device itself runs updates on its own, and Granbery says that the merchant doesn't have to touch it at all. When plugged into an outlet, the device, which takes a triangular shape similar to PayPal Here, lights up. We’re told Yves Behar, who also designed Here, was the brains behind the design of Beacon.

Consumers have to have downloaded the PayPal app, and opted into ability for retailers to use Beacon to use hands-free check-in and payments. Once this is activated, any time a consumer walks into the store the technology will trigger a vibration or sound to confirm a successful check in (this happens in milliseconds), your photo will then appear on the screen of the merchant’s Point-of-Sale system so you can be greeted by name. The app does not have to open on the consumer’s smartphone. You order or pay for your goods, and paying only requires a verbal confirmation, and the checkout is complete. A receipt will be emailed to the consumer.

PayPal also warns that it is aware of the potential privacy issues so PayPal Beacon won’t constantly track your location unlike other technologies. If you enter a store and decline to check in, or just ignore the prompt entirely, no information is transmitted to PayPal or the merchant. PayPal has also said that there will be no ads served via the platform.

The broader vision for Beacon is to have an open platform from which merchants can create compelling, friction-less experiences for their consumers. As part of the announcement today, PayPal is giving developers access to the PayPal mobile in-store API. So for example, a drugstore could populate your prescriptions as you walk into the store so you could automatically pay for your bill without having to swipe a card. Or you could automatically add your name to a wait list for tables at a restaurant by walking in.

Marcus says that PayPal has been showing the device to retailers, large and small, and they “love it.” Part of the reason, he says, is that not only does it help them connect and potentially bring in customers, but it also integrates seamlessly with their existing point of sale systems. “I want to create an operating system for the retail environment,” he tells me.

He also adds that the company focused particularly on design. “PayPal was not a hardware company,” he says. But steadily with the debut of mobile payments device and platform PayPal Here, and now Beacon, the payments giant is definitely digging deep into hardware. He adds that this was the most sophisticated piece of hardware to ship to date and right now the company is not focused on making a profit on Beacon. PayPal says that the cost of the device has not been determined yet but it will be in the double digits.

PayPal says it will start piloting Beacon enabled shopping experiences in Q4, and the full roll-out is planned early 2014.

It’s no secret Marcus has been working tirelessly to create more of a startup culture at PayPal to drive further innovation at the company. If there was anyone who could make this work, it is Marcus, who has been a serial entrepreneur until PayPal acquired his mobile payments company Zong a few years ago. He, along with the engineers I spoke to, said that this launch was much different than launches past. They all said the launch and collaboration felt more engrained in the startup culture. Not only did the team feel like what they were doing was cutting edge and unique, but written in go (code),

As evidenced by PayPal latest app update from last week, the company is making a big bet on creating an in-store experience for both consumers and retailers. It’s ambitious to say the least because not only does the payments company have to change the behavior of the consumer (from just swiping a card) but it also has to convince retailers and the 100 million plus PayPal users that it is worth it. Marcus says that providing a frictionless experience for both parties will be the key to success when changing behavior.

The Lure of Electronics, the Perils of Distraction

As reported by Fleetowner: A new study came out this week – compiled by the University of Washington’s Harborview Injury Prevention and Research Center – that makes an unsurprising yet important finding: some 45% of “distracted drivers” identified during the school’s real-time observation of 7,800 drivers across six Washington State counties were distracted by their cell phones; either talking on them or texting with them.

Dr. Beth Ebel, an associate professor of pediatrics at the school and the study’s principal investigator, added that among the 3.4% of drivers observed in the study talking on a hand-held phone, half were holding the device near or under the steering wheel. This risky behavior diverts the driver’s attention from the road.

“These findings suggest that distracted driving is more common than we thought and that texting has become a major cause of distraction,” she added.

That’s a big deal for several reasons, noted Dr. Ebel, with estimates suggesting that up to 28% of crash risk is attributable to cell phone use or text messaging in vehicles. She also said that prior studies show texting while driving increases crash risk by 23 times, similar to driving with a blood alcohol level of 0.19.

Dr. Ebel added that these are preliminary results, part of a broader study conducted to explore the effects of law enforcement on electronic distracted driving. In October, a “statewide report card” will be released providing more data by county, with this “baseline assessment” designed to help county law enforcement, prosecutors and public health officials evaluate the effectiveness of various ways to stop distract driving.

“These recent findings provide objective support for what we’ve long believed: texting contributes to more collisions than we can prove,” said Chief John Batiste of the Washington State Patrol. “After a collision, drivers almost never admit they were texting. We believe the problem has, until now, been drastically under-reported.”

Now, trucking of course already operates under a complete ban of cell phone use but the more important question in all of this regards whether such “bans” really work.

While the Governors Highway Safety Assn. (GHSA) began calling for outlawing all handheld cell phone use while behind the wheel for all drivers in the nation, not just truckers, starting about a year ago, other studies suggest such bans may not produce the desired result: namely the cessation of cell phone use while driving.

Thus it will be interesting to see what Washington State does based on the results of this distracted driver survey.

US Fuel Economy Hits Six-Year High

As reported by the NY Times: The average fuel economy of new vehicles sold in the United States hit a new high of 24.9 miles per gallon in August, according to a University of Michigan study released Tuesday.

The results indicate that automakers are producing more fuel-efficient models and consumers are continuing a trend of buying vehicles that use less gasoline. The industry is not only producing more hybrid and electric vehicles, but reducing the fuel consumption of traditional gas-guzzlers, like pickup trucks and large S.U.V.'s.

The study, prepared by the university’s Transportation Research Institute, said that the average fuel economy increased one-tenth of a gallon from the July results.

Fuel economy for new vehicles has been steadily increasing since the monthly study began in October 2007, when the average was 20.1 miles per gallon.

“The 4.8 m.p.g. improvement in the course of the past six years is significant both by itself and in comparison to the change in vehicle fuel economy over the past 90 years,” said Michael Sivak, director of the sustainable transportation program at the university.

Automakers are under pressure to further improve the fuel efficiency of new models to meet stringent new government standards enacted a year ago.

The Obama administration has set a target of increasing the Corporate Average Fuel Economy, also known as CAFE, to 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016 and 54.5 m.p.g. by 2025.

The government estimates that the 54.5 m.p.g. standard will result in average fuel savings of $8,000 over the lifetime of a vehicle and dramatically reduce fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.

The University of Michigan report said that such emissions for new vehicles have been reduced by 19 percent over the last six years.

Automakers are stepping up their development of greener cars, like hybrids that alternate between gasoline and battery power, plug-in hybrids that run primarily on batteries, and purely electric vehicles that use no gasoline.

Smart Watch Links Car and Driver

Like tech from a cyberpunk novel, Nissan announced a new smart
watch that will link drivers intimately with their cars, showing both
driving telemetry such as speed, and driver heart rate.

As reported by CNET: The link between man and machine drove car enthusiasts for decades, unwitting adherents to Marinetti's Futurist Manifesto, yet until now that link lacked coherence. Nissan's Nismo smart watch takes the first step in using technology to quantify the connection between car and driver.

Smart watches have only gained momentum in the last couple of years, and Nissan is first to jump on the bandwagon, today announcing its Nismo Watch Concept.

The watch is designed for drivers of Nissan Nismo model variants, currently encompassing the 370Z, Juke, and upcoming GT-R. Photos Nissan released ahead of the unveil at the Frankfurt auto show this week show the watch in traditional Nismo black and red, but the company says it will also offer it in black or white.

Using a Bluetooth Low Energy connection, the watch gathers telemetry data from the car, including speed, along with efficiency information, such as fuel consumption. Nissan says the telemetry data will show drivers their track-record performance.

The watch shows driver heart rate and vehicle speed,
but does it tell time?

At the same time, the watch will also monitor driver health, such as heart rate. In Nissan's photo, the watch gives its wearer a warning after noting an excessive heart rate.

The watch band appears to connect around the wrist in one, solid piece, encasing the actual watch mechanism. That style looks designed to prevent damage. Charged through a micro-USB port, Nissan notes the battery will last for seven days.

Nissan is considering future additions to its smart watch technology, including electrocardiogram, electroencephalogram, and skin temperature monitoring.

The Nissan Nismo Watch Concept will be on display at the Frankfurt auto show. Nissan offered no information on availability or pricing.

MIT's "Hot or Not" Site for Neighborhoods Could Help Shape the Design of Future Cities

As reported by Motherboard:When you walk around a city, there are things you can just sense, like if you've wandered into a dodgy neighborhood, or where the new happening spot is. Intuitively, we know that a city's more intangible characteristics, like class or uniqueness, play a big role in what it’s like to live there, but until now there was no way to actually quantify that idea.

Researchers from MIT Media Lab may have found a way to measure this "aesthetic capital" of cities, with their website Place Pulse, a tool to crowdsource people’s perception of cities by judging digital snapshots—a sort of “hot or not” for urban neighborhoods.

Some 4,000 geotagged Google Streetview images and 8,000 participants later, the team found that by using digital images and crowdsourced feedback, they can accurately quantify the diverse vibes within a city, which in turn can help us better understand issues like inequality and safety. The results were published in the journal PloS One.

The results could be used to someday map the intangible uniqueness of neighborhoods around the world, which could help improve neighborhoods and design future cities.

The data could also add some weight to the controversial “Broken Windows Theory,” which suggests that physical signs of disorder in a neighborhood—like broken windows—can lead to crime, causing a vicious cycle. The theory has been hotly debated since it came out of Harvard in the 80s, partly because it’s hard to actually measure and quantify “disorder.”

The Place Pulse experiment could change that. From the study:

Cities are not just collections of demographics, but places that people experience. Urban environments are known to elicit strong evaluative responses, and there is evidence and theories suggesting that these responses may affect criminal and health behaviors. Yet, we lack good quantitative data on the responses elicited by urban environments. Place Pulse is an effort to help collect quantitative data of urban perception to help advance these research efforts and open new avenues of research.

In other words, there's more to measure in a city than just demographics and income. Things like energy level, architecture, beauty, and so on can impact people’s social behavior. While Place Pulse 1.0 was a small experiment—it looked at images from just four cities, Boston and New York in the US and Salzburg and Linz in Austria—the method proved effective enough to be worth exploring further, according to the report.

Now MIT has expanded the study out to 56 cities around the world, with more than 100,000 geotagged images. Place Pulse 2.0 also measures more characteristics, looking at how boring, depressing, lively, safe, and wealthy the cities seem.

The team wants to use this second, larger dataset to train machine learning algorithms to understand what kind of features in the photos lead humans to answer the way they do—in a sense, to teach computers intuition, so the research could scale.

The Place Pulse experiment is simple. Like Mark Zuckerberg’s infamous pre-Facebook FaceMash site, it shows two images side by side and asks people to answer questions like "which place looks safer?" or "which place looks more upper-class?"

The first experiment found that the US cities, Boston and New York, were more unequal than the Austrian cities. There was a wider gap between "good" and "bad" neighborhoods. The researchers compared the results with actual statistics on homicides in New York and found a strong correlation between their data on how safe neighborhoods seem, and the existing data on how safe neighborhoods are.

With a larger dataset, being analyzed by learning machines, the findings could be used to design the city of tomorrow. "Ultimately, the goal of this study,” researchers wrote, “is to contribute to our understanding of the urban environments that we have built, with the goal of improving them, and their ability to include their citizens, while also informing the construction of future cities.”