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On the site now: 46234 articles from 3069 suppliers!
...from 20 articles and news releases just added to the site:
EXCLUSIVE: New line cleans up on potting operations
The acquisition of a new self-mixing self-measuring dispensing machine is enabling CT Production to improve the efficiency of its potting operations.
Exclusive article from CT Production
Sensor ICs suit high-frequency applications
Each BiCMOS monolithic circuit integrates a Hall-effect sensor element, temperature-compensating circuitry to reduce the intrinsic sensitivity drift of the Hall element.
Product/Service News from Allegro MicroSystems Europe (14 May 2008)
PSU designer to enhance power IC portfolio
The acquisition of Commergy Technologies will allow TI to broaden its focus on improving energy efficiency in end-equipment designs.
Company news from Texas Instruments (April 2006-) (14 May 2008)
Paralleling power supply outputs for redundancy
Configuring a redundant power system is not just a matter connecting two power supplies in parallel: Alex Karapetian explains why.
Background article from Acopian Power Supplies
Collaboration speeds IC verifictaion
Synopsys' XA acceleration technology allows customers to achieve HSPICE accuracy while delivering far higher performance and capacity than existing FastSpice solutions.
User application article from Synopsys (14 May 2008)
All 20 technical articles, news releases, and user applications today...
From the Electronicstalk Editorial Newsletter this week
Laurence Marchini, Editor writes:
The human-machine interface has come a long way since those less enlightened times when we used to call it the man-machine interface. Along with many different innovations in display technology, the input side of the equation continues its slow evolution. But many of the basic concepts remain the same: the QWERTY keyboard layout remains, and the mouse (or equivalent) has the same basic function as that popularised on the original Apple computers in the 1980s.
There have been several attempts to redesign the basic keyboard, but still we are left with a design that owes its layout to the need to avoid key clashes on mechanical typewriters. Nonetheless, the QWERTY layout - once familiarised - appears to mesh pretty well with the human brain, as anyone who can remember the typing pools of the last century will recall. However, regardless of whether the QWERTY keyboard is traditional electromechanical, membrane or made up of touch sensors, the fundamental problem remains one of size: each key has to be large enough to accommodate human fingers - including the somewhat un-co-ordinated digits of ham-fisted scribes such as myself.
So what of alternative input methods? Well, the past two decades have seen some laudable attempts to break away from the size limitations of the keyboard.
In the early 1990s, speech recognition was touted widely as the solution to all our woes. The arrival of low-cost DSP devices would enable a new class of algorithms that could (with suitable training) do away with the keyboard altogether. I vividly remember visiting one of Europe's foremost language laboratories where speakers of every language and dialect were busy recording every possible syllable and phoneme in an attempt to build the ultimate voice recognition algorithm.
And while embedded applications such as voice control of hands-free phones are commonplace, the lack of an all-encompassing speech to text function only serves to prove what a diverse thing the human voice can be, even when we are supposedly talking the same language. After all, who could expect a machine made in California to understand the voice of a Cornishman.
Handwriting recognition was also mooted as an alternative during the 1990s. Yet one by one I saw my colleagues discard their styli and go back to their keyboards. It's ironic that one of the applications cited for the technology in those days was in keeping medical records. And if anyone could crack the code of the average medical practitioner's handwriting, they would have found the proverbial Holy Grail!
The keyboard may remain king for text input, but today's contenders for replacement HMIs focus more on navigating around the screen. Vision sensors can be trained to recognise gestures and eye movements. There are even further advances in physical switching devices - as you will see below, C+K Components has devised a single navigation device capable of no fewer than 14 different functions.
However, I didn't get where I am today without reading an awful lot of science fiction and fantasy in my youth, and so I am particularly intrigued by the impending commercial release of the world's first brain-interface headset by Australian/US crossover company Emotiv. The EPOC headset incorporates 16 sensors that measure electrical impulses from the brain - fortunately without recourse to the invasive needle probes favoured by my favourite authors!
Not surprisingly, the initial market for EPOC will be in the games market. But there are innumerable other tasks that could benefit from a "direct" interface between the human and the machine. Anyone want to buy a (badly) used keyboard?
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