Monday, 9 September 2013

Nissan launches Nismo smartwatch for drivers

Nissan smart watch  
The smartwatch aims to unite driver and car
A smartwatch that monitors the performance of a vehicle as well as the driver has been launched by car manufacturer Nissan.
Like many other smartwatches, the Nissan Nismo measures the user's heart rate, temperature and other biometrics.
But it also allows users to keep an eye on their car's performance - including average speeds and fuel consumption.
Experts say that the watch could be an important step towards greater connectivity in cars.
"Connectivity is the new battleground for car manufacturers," said Chas Hallett, editor-in-chief of What Car?
"In-car internet is coming and now with consumer electronics focusing on watch-based connections, Nissan is getting ahead of the game and joining the two together very cleverly."
The Nismo watch can be connected to the car's on-board computer system to allow users to monitor vehicle telematics and performance data. Users can also receive tailored messages from Nissan via the gadget.
It was unveiled ahead of the Frankfurt Motor Show, which runs until 22 September.
Concentration levels
Samsung Galaxy Gear Samsung has just released its first smartwatch - the Galaxy Gear
"Wearable technology is fast becoming the next big thing and we want to take advantage of this innovative technology," said Gareth Dunsmore, marketing communications general manager at Nissan, Europe.
A glut of smartwatches has hit the market recently, including Samsung's Galaxy Gear and Sony's Smartwatch 2.
Car-connected watches could be even more useful than those offered by consumer electronic firms, thinks Mr Hallett.
"Imagine if you could heat up your car on a cold day before you got into it or shut the roof of your convertible when it started raining and it was parked outside," he said.
The Nissan Leaf electric car already allows users to interact with it via their mobile phone, said Mr Dunsmore, and such functionality should be available in the firm's next-generation watches.
The current gadget is one of the first products to come out of its Nismo laboratory, which captures live biometric and telematics data from Nissan racing cars and their drivers.
The lab plans to use electrocardiograms (ECG) and electroencephalograms (EEG) in the future to capture a range of heart and brainwave data.
The eventual aim would be to create wearable technology for drivers that can spot fatigue, monitor drivers' levels of concentration and emotions and record hydration levels.
The Nismo, which comes in three colours and has a battery life of around a week, can be controlled by two buttons on the screen.

Formula E to use Qualcomm technologies in electric cars

Lucas di Grassi
Smartphone chipmaker Qualcomm has signed a sponsorship deal with the forthcoming Formula E championship.
The FIA international motorsports body plans to launch the electric-car competition next year as an alternative to Formula 1.
Qualcomm will provide wireless-charging and augmented-reality technology to help the teams taking part and the public watching the races.
It has also pledged an undisclosed sum of money as part of the five-year deal.
Both organisations said the intention of the championship was to both provide entertainment and to spur on electric-vehicle technologies.
One analyst said the events could help improve the public's perception of electric cars, but added there would need to be other developments if the tech was to go mainstream.
The FIA itself acknowledged change would not come overnight.
"We will make people more inclined to buy an electric car, but this will take time - five or 10 years," Formula E's chief executive Alejandro Agag told the BBC.
Wire-free recharges Among the products Qualcomm plans to offer is its wireless vehicle-charging tech, Halo.
The facility - which is being developed by the company's London-based lab - creates an electromagnetic field using a copper pad buried in the ground. This can be picked up by a coil built into a vehicle, which converts it into electricity to power-up a battery.
British Formula E team Drayson Racing Technologies has already tested a customised version of Halo as a way of charging its vehicles when they are stationary.
Formula E car hidden under a sheet The FIA will unveil a Qualcomm-branded Formula E car later this week
However, the intention is to use the tech to recharge only the competition's safety vehicle during the first year of the championship before extending it to the competitors' cars in either year two or three.
In time, Qualcomm said, several pads could be built into the city centre roads used by the races to provide "dynamic charging" - the ability for the cars to top up their power on the go, helping them complete the race in quicker time.
South Korea has already pioneered something similar, using a locally developed variant of mobile recharging tech called OLEV to power buses on a set route.
However, such schemes are costly and the FIA said it recognised the competition would need to prove popular if it was to raise the sums necessary to pay for the installation of the many pads required.
Live updates Qualcomm also intends to help design the telemetrics system used by the race - the automated process that monitors the vehicles taking part.
"Tyre pressure, engine, fuel, brake fluid, speed, torque - all sorts of things will be monitored on a miniscule nanosecond by nanosecond basis," explained Anand Chandrasekher, Qualcomm's chief marketing officer.
Former F1 driver Lucas di Grassi was appointed Formula E's series test driver last year
"Those streams of data will be sent real-time to a central area where the teams will be able to get access to that information and use it with their own proprietary software to say, 'OK, what guidance should we provide the driver as to what he or she should be doing in real time?'"
He added the information would also be able to be accessed by the public through the planned roll-out of its Vuforia software.
The app promises to offer an "augmented reality" view of the race, allowing spectators to carry on watching the car of their choice even if buildings or other objects obstruct their view by holding up their smartphone or tablet to make the vehicle visible.
Mr Chandrasekher said the public would be able to bring up the same real-time performance data as the racers' support teams, using the progam.
'Psychological impact' Formula E is scheduled to commence in September 2014 in London, with races to follow in nine other cities including Beijing and Los Angeles.
Ten teams, each with two drivers, will compete against each other over the course of an hour.
Mr Agag said he believed the events would appeal to a younger audience than that typically attracted to Formula 1, and he hoped many of the fans would end up becoming electric car owners.
"We think Formula E can be a platform where companies can showcase and develop and improve technologies for electric road cars," he said.
Spark-Renault SRT-01E The Spark-Renault SRT-01E will be one of the cars competing in the Formula E competition
"We will demonstrate that batteries will offer more performance and go longer. At the beginning [the drivers] will swap cars, but this will stop as the batteries improve, and people will see the cars go faster.
"This, we hope, will have a psychological impact and make people more inclined to buy an electric car."
One independent automobile expert agreed the competition could prove influential.
"There's a perception issue with electric vehicles - people worry about how far they will go and the cost of the batteries," said Prof David Bailey, from Coventry Business School.
"This could show people how well they work.
"But a lot of other things need to happen including changes in government policy if there's to be the necessary investment in wireless charging and other infrastructure beyond the racetracks."

How schools will boot up a new ICT curriculum by Jane Wakefield

Will children return after the summer holidays to radically different ICT lessons? 
What is your wish for your child(ren) towards the rapidly technological growth in our world today? If you think learning is the best way then the piece below by Jane Wakefield will impress you.
As the schools in England close for the summer holidays, the planning of lessons in September is probably not top of teachers' to-do lists.
But information and communications technology (ICT) specialists could find they have to grapple with the issue sooner than their colleagues, as the government aims to overhaul the way the subject is taught.
Education Secretary Michael Gove kick-started the process back in January by saying current ICT lessons were "demotivating and dull' and needed radical reform.
Schools, he said, needed to ditch lessons on how to use Powerpoint in favour of getting the kids designing apps and learning to code.
The speech took ICT teachers by surprise and many are still no clearer about what is expected of them when schools return for a new academic year.
"The framework for ICT and the exams changed without any warning or training," said Carol Dawkins, an IT teacher at Toynbee School in Chandlers Ford.
"There has been no preparation or consultation with teachers."
Peter Mapstone, head of IT at King Edward V1, an independent school in Hampshire, said: "It is the right idea, but it has been done very quickly."
"There has been some confusion and there is still a question of, 'What do we do?'"
Following Mr Gove's speech, the government made two important changes for ICT.
It has scrapped the programme of work that dictated what teachers taught in the first three years of secondary school.
And children wishing to take ICT to exam level will have fewer choices, with more emphasis on computer science.
For Mr Mapstone there is one glaring problem with the government's desire to see more teaching about how computers actually work.
"There aren't enough skilled teachers to deliver computer programming," he said.
According to government statistics only 35% of ICT teachers are specialists, compared with more than 80% for core subjects such as maths and English.
What exam?
Computer code The government wants to see more coding in the classroom
Prof Matthew Harrison, director of education at the Royal Academy of Engineering, agrees there could be a shortage.
"A degree in computer science is very lucrative on the open market," he said.
"Graduates go and get a job in computing and earn a lot of money."
But he thinks that the changes were necessary.
"Some ICT lessons had become pedestrian," he said.
"There were many different qualifications and different options within them. Many were about digital literacy, which is not going set people up for progression in computing beyond the age of 16."
The academy has prepared a guide, breaking down the qualifications now recognised by government into three distinct categories - digital literacy, IT and computer science - to help schools decide which ones to offer.
Ms Dawkins says a narrow computer-science-based curriculum could have unintended consequences.
"As a result of the government's new policy, there is a question mark over which exams are acceptable," she said.
"Now government wants us to go down a more academic route, it has narrowed down the qualifications that are recognised, which may mean we get even less people choosing it."
The Department for Education is clear that schools must take the initiative when it comes to teaching ICT.
"The current ICT curriculum is weak and outdated," a spokeswoman told the BBC.
"We must give teachers freedom over what and how to teach - so pupils can access up-to-date and relevant ICT and computer science resources, rather than an invalid and prescriptive curriculum."
The government was "expecting schools to take the lead and come up with innovative ways to teach ICT," she added.
Google teachers
Raspberry Pi with SD memory card attached  
The Google teachers will be equipped with devices such as the Raspberry Pi
Some believe the debate about the state of ICT teaching in the UK was kick-started by Google chairman Eric Schmidt who, in a speech last August, said the UK was throwing away its computing heritage and lacked trained specialists.
Computer science education, he said, was in a "sorry state".
In May, Google unveiled a plan to invest in computer science teachers via the Teach First charity, which puts "exceptional" graduates on a six-week training programme before deploying them to schools where they teach for a two-year period. It aims to train 100 such graduates over the next three years.
Each will have a bursary to buy equipment, such as Raspberry Pi or Arduino computer kits.
Partnerships with industry are just one of many innovative ways that ICT can be taught, according to Prof Harrison.
"You can bring in volunteers from industry to buddy with teachers," he said.
"We have already seen that happen in design and technology, where engineers were deployed alongside teachers."
ICT, he says, needs a campaign similar to the London Evening Standard newspaper's recent literacy campaign, which called for volunteers to spend an hour a week in classrooms helping primary school children learn to read.
There is also a lot of scope for crowd-sourcing expertise. Computing At Schools is a grass-roots group that aims to share expertise among like-minded teachers.
But these are only short-term quick fixes and a more long-term vision is also necessary, according to Prof Harrison.
"If, like I do, you believe that computing is vital component of the UK economy going forward then you have to invest and plan for it," he said.
"You have to recruit specialists and deploy them widely in schools. Computing needs to be seen as an important part of the education landscape, on a par with maths and physics."