Word: sensor
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...become an accepted part of life: Singapore. Granted, that city also accepts caning. But it's the one comparable model, and the results have been tremendous. A charging scheme has been in place for more than 25 years. Today, each car entering the city center passes by a sensor that reads a "smart card" installed in the dashboard. The charge, which varies from €0.50 to €3 depending on the time of day, is automatically deducted. Every three months, officials tweak the rates to adapt to changing traffic patterns. Driving into Singapore, the success of the system is obvious...
...tarmac too. At www.autobahn.nrw.de, drivers in North-Rhine Westphalia can see a real-time simulation of traffic conditions on its 2,250 km of motorway. The man behind the site, Michael Schreckenberg of Duisburg-Essen University, is now at work on the world's largest traffic-information system, using sensor-gathered data to channel travel advice to TV, radio and motorway screens. If you still can't face the rush hour, try staying home like the 2% of Europeans who now telework daily. BIKES As 30% of Dutch commuters know, for distances of less than a few kilometers cycling...
...hard drive, MP3 player and digital camera (so you can look up recipes, cook to music and e-mail photos of the results). A one-of-a-kind garbage can, the $55 Smart Bin from Innovative Products, automatically pops its lid when you wave your hand over its motion sensor...
...that snaps taken with a $500 digital camera often aren't as sharp as those from a $20 disposable? Because unlike the light-sensitive chemicals in ordinary analog film, each sensor on a digital chip saves only one-third of the color data it receives--either red, green or blue, but not all three at once. With the new Foveon X3 technology, however, three sensors are stacked on top of one another, so that each pixel absorbs the full color spectrum. Result: a 3.5-megapixel camera using Foveon technology will produce images as clear as today's 7 MP models...
...keyboards? They soon may. Two companies have developed prototype "virtual" keyboards designed to accompany portable devices like PDAs, tablet PCs and cell phones. Here's how they work: a laser beam projects a glowing red outline of a keyboard on a desk or other flat surface. A sensor like those used in digital cameras monitors the reflection of an infrared light projected on the same spot. It can tell which "keys" you are trying to strike by the way that reflection changes. Someday, similar keyboards may be built into the gadgets they work with, so that they disappear when...