Tech Hugger

Self-Driving Car Tesla's Model X An  autonomous car  ( driverless car ,  self-driving car ,  robotic car ) is a vehicle that is capable of sensing its environment and navigating without human input. Autonomous cars can detect surroundings using a variety of techniques such as radar, lidar, GPS, odometry, and computer vision. Advanced control systems interpret sensory information to identify appropriate navigation paths, as well as obstacles and relevant signage. Autonomous cars have control systems that are capable of analyzing sensory data to distinguish between different cars on the road, which is very useful in planning a path to the desired destination. Some demonstrative systems, precursory to autonomous cars, date back to the 1920s and 30s. The first self-sufficient (and therefore, truly autonomous) cars appeared in the 1980s, with Carnegie Mellon University's Navlab and ALV proje...

Gorilla Glass Gorilla Glass  is a brand of specialized  toughened glass  developed and manufactured by Corning , now in its fourth generation, designed to be thin, light and damage-resistant. This type of glass is not unique to Corning; similar glasses include  Asahi Glass Co.   Dragontrail  and Schott AG  Xensation. The  alkali - aluminosilicate  sheet glass is used primarily as cover glass for portable electronic devices, including  mobile phones ,  portable media players ,  portable computer  displays, and some  television  screens. It is manufactured in  Harrodsburg, Kentucky , USA, in  Asan , Korea, and in Taiwan. The glass gains its surface strength, ability to contain flaws, and crack-resistance by being immersed in a hot potassium salt ion-exchange bath. A picture from Google images Corning further developed the material for a variety of  smartphones  and...

Graphics Tablet A  graphics tablet  or  digitizer  is a computer input device that enables a user to hand-draw images, animations and graphics, similar to the way a person draws images with a pencil and paper. These tablets may also be used to capture data or handwritten signatures. It can also be used to trace an image from a piece of paper which is taped or otherwise secured to the surface. Capturing data in this way, by tracing or entering the corners of linear poly-lines or shapes, is called digitizing. The device consists of a flat surface upon which the user may "draw" or trace an image using an attached  stylus , a pen-like drawing apparatus. The image is displayed on the computer monitor, although some graphics tablets also have a screen. Some tablets are intended as a replacement for the mouse as the primary pointing and navigation device for desktop computers. Wacom Bamboo Capture tablet and pen Wacom Cintiq Compani...

Car-to-Car Communication H ariharan Krishnan hardly looks like a street racer. With thin-rimmed glasses and a neat mustache, he reminds me of a math teacher. And yet on a sunny day last September, he was speeding, seemingly recklessly, around the parking lot at General Motors’ research center in Warren, Michigan, in a Cadillac DTS. I was in the passenger seat as Krishnan wheeled around a corner and hit the gas. A moment later a light flashed on the dashboard, there was a beeping sound, and our seats started buzzing furiously. Krishnan slammed on the brakes, and we lurched to a stop just as another car whizzed past from the left, its approach having been obscured by a large hedge. “You can see I was completely blinded,” he said calmly. The technology that warned of the impending collision will start appearing in cars in just a couple of years. Called car-to-car or vehicle-to-vehicle communication, it lets cars broadcast their position, speed, steering-wheel positi...

POINT OF SALE Point of sale  (also called  POS  or  checkout , during computerization later becoming  electronic point of sale  or  EPOS ) is the place where a retail transaction is completed. It is the point at which a customer makes a payment to the merchant in exchange for goods or services. At the point of sale the retailer would calculate the amount owed by the customer and provide options for the customer to make payment. The merchant will also normally issue a receipt for the transaction. The POS in various retail industries uses customized hardware and software as per their requirements. Retailers may utilize weighing scales, scanners, electronic and manual cash registers, EFTPOS terminals, touch screens and any other wide variety of hardware and software available for use with POS. For example, a grocery or candy store uses a scale at the point of sale, while bars and restaurants use software to customize the item or service s...

INTERACTIVE WHITEBOARD An  interactive whiteboard  ( IWB ) is a large interactive display that connects to a computer. A projector projects the computer's desktop onto the board's surface where users control the computer using a pen, finger, stylus, or other device. The board is typically mounted to a wall or floor stand. They are used in a variety of settings, including classrooms at all levels of education, in corporate board rooms and work groups, in training rooms for professional sports coaching, in broadcasting studios, and others. Working on an IWB The first interactive whiteboards were designed and manufactured for use in the office. They were developed by Xerox Parc around 1990. This board was used in small group meetings and round-tables. A pupil uses the interactive whiteboard The interactive whiteboard industry was expected to reach sales of US$1 billion ...

Pen Computing   refers to a computer user-interface using a pen (or   stylus ) and tablet, rather than devices such as a keyboard, joysticks or a mouse. Pen computing is also used to refer to the usage of   mobile devices   such as   wireless   tablet personal computers ,   PDAs   and   GPS receivers . The term has been used to refer to the usage of any product allowing for mobile communication. An indication of such a device is a   stylus , generally used to press upon a   graphics tablet   or   touchscreen , as opposed to using a more traditional interface such as a   keyboard ,   keypad ,   mouse   or   touchpad . Historically, pen computing (defined as a computer system employing a user-interface using a pointing device plus handwriting recognition as the primary means for interactive user input) predates the use of a mouse and graphical display by at least two decades, starting with t...