Gesture Recognition is one of the cool new applications that is changing the way we interact with electronic devices and with each other.
This year, uses for gesture recognition are expanding from gaming into other areas. Several industries are looking at integrating gesture recognition into mobile phones, TVs, laptops and tablets, smart home and surveillance solutions, automotive uses, and for medical and educational purposes.
At the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) last month, Samsung and LG introduced smart TVs that include gesture recognition, speech recognition, face recognition and voice control capabilities. Check out the Samsung demo clip below.
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WIRED also just posted a story that covers how 3D gesture recognition is becoming a hot area of innovation. We can hope to see gesture recognition in notebooks and PCs by the middle of the year!
http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/30/tech/gaming-gadgets/microsoft-kinect-laptops-wired/index.html?hpt=hp_bn6
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Last week, President Obama delivered his State of the Union Address before a joint session of Congress in Washington, D.C. Obama discussed many vital areas such as job creation, innovation, the economy, and education. He also announced the creation of a new Trade Enforcement Unit.
According to Obama, the Trade Enforcement Unit will be charged with investigating unfair trading practices in other countries. There will also be an increase in the number of inspections to help prevent counterfeit or unsafe goods from crossing U.S. borders.
These efforts are timely as counterfeiting continues to increase around the world in every market. If you look at the pharmacuetical industry in particular, The World Health Organization estimates that nearly double the amount of counterfeit drugs were sold in 2010 compared to 2005.
JDSU recently launched a campaign about anti-counterfeiting technology that helps the pharmacuetical industry better identify counterfeit products. Ultimately this not only protects their businesses and the economy but also protects all of us from the potentially harmful repercussions of fake drugs.
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In a recent article for Lightwave Magazine, Sinclair Vass from JDSU covers trends he sees for the optical industry in 2012.
At the highest level, explosive bandwidth growth from both wired and wireless networks will continue to be stretched as people increasingly use connected smart devices as part of their daily lives.
In response to this, the optical supply chain will have to become more responsive or “on demand” to meet unpredictable bandwidth needs.
Carriers will have to operate their network infrastructures more efficiently to keep pace with the ever-changing economics of what people are willing or not willing to pay for.
40G and 100G technology will continue to be adopted and deployed to beef up network speeds around the world.
And smaller, faster, more flexible optical parts, like tunable XFP transceivers, will be the norm.
It’s worth a read.
When it comes to 40G, the communications industry has a crush on copper. Growing bandwidth demands, as a result of telepresence, high-definition video and mobile applications, are fueling interest in moving fiber-based office networks and data centers toward copper cabling for greater than 10G transmission. Assaji Aluwihare, JDSU’s director of network and enterprise test, addressed this trend a recent article in Cabling Installation & Maintenance.
While there are no current 40G Ethernet standards over twisted-pair copper, standards bodies are now studying the appropriate frequency performances of cabling systems.
For example, the Capacity Working Group is working to determine the technical parameters and overall noise model for a channel. The standards body is defining the capabilities of physical interface devices in noise cancellation, power consumption and bandwidth performance. International Electrotechnical Commission and IEEE also are developing cable specifications.
Benefits of copper cabling for 40G networks include:
· A key advantage of copper is autonegotiation. With autonegotiation, enterprises and data centers can upgrade some of their existing network elements without upgrading everything to higher speeds. For example, a server with a 40G Ethernet interface could be used with a 10G Ethernet switch; this is possible with copper but not with fiber. In an office local area network, autonegotiation lets devices interoperate at different speeds, making moves, adds and changes easier.
· While fiber cabling may be less expensive than copper, copper physical interfaces tend to be much less expensive than fiber, as no optical-to-electrical conversion is needed.
· A data center upgrade to a new generation of copper is no more complex than upgrading to 40G Ethernet from a legacy, multimode-based 10G Ethernet system.
Now that optical fiber isn’t the only game in town for 40G cabling, we’ll stay tuned to see if the industry’s crush on copper can outpace infatuation with fiber.
By Scott Magnacca
The National Defense Authorization Act is a bill that has been voted on by the House and Senate and signed into law by the President at the beginning of each year since 1962. It specifies the annual budget and expenditures for the U.S. Department of Defense. The 2012 bill was approved by President Obama on January 1.
Major bills typically carry along with them an array of amendments, and the NDAA is no exception. One that is of great interest to JDSU is the Levin-McCain Amendment No. 1092.
Counterfeit electronic parts pose an increasing risk to military equipment and personnel, and the Levin-McCain Amendment takes aim at this problem. It requires defense contractors to buy electronic components only from authorized dealers or trusted suppliers. It also focuses on the improvement of processes for detecting and avoiding the use or inclusion of counterfeit electronic parts in any original or reworked product within the Department of Defense supply chain. Further, it bars contractors from charging the Pentagon for the costs of replacing fake parts. It also requires the Department of Homeland Security to improve inspection of electronic parts.
The legislation requires the Secretary of Defense to revise the Department of Defense Supplement to the Federal Acquisition Regulations to include these new responsibilities within 180 days after approval. Thus, the clock is ticking, and the JDSU Authentication Solutions Group is taking rapid steps to reach out to the defense contractor community to provide technology to help meet the requirements.
Because of its experience as a developer and manufacturer of secure authentication technologies, JDSU has the know-how to aid in secure inspection and tracking of all types of products. This know-how includes overt technologies such as optical effects for printing and holography; covert technologies, such as CharmsTM micro-taggants that can be put into inks or other coatings that are only detectable by microscopes or special readers; and digital technologies that enable a closed loop track and trace system which identifies the status of an item and provides a history of the item from a historical perspective.
The JDSU team also has experience training field investigators and customs officials that can assist in the development of employee training programs to identify counterfeit or suspect electronic parts.
We just launched a new JDSU.tv segment about the growing problem of counterfeiting in the pharmaceutical industry and the solutions that JDSU provides to help companies stay ahead of this illegal activity. The World Health Organization estimates that over seventy five billion dollars worth of counterfeit drugs were sold in 2010. This is nearly double the activity compared to 2005.
In the feature video, Greg Miller discusses why counterfeiters are drawn to the pharmaceutical industry and the negative impact it has on companies and consumers. Miller then elaborates on the different technologies that JDSU provides to help people easily identify the authenticity of pharmaceutical products.
As part of the segment, I also conducted supporting interviews with two product experts to learn more about each technology offering. You can find these videos on the main left sidebar of the JDSU.tv page.
Authentication solutions include things like layered visual solutions that are printed on product labels or tamper evident seals that change images or colors when viewed at different angles. There are some great visual examples of this in the video, some of them where shot at our label facility in Southern California.
Other solutions include microscopic identifiers that are hidden within products to secretly track products as well as online monitoring products that let you track products via the internet or with a smartphone – pretty cool stuff.
I hope the videos help you understand another interesting aspect of JDSU’s expansive technology portfolio that maybe you didn’t know about before.
CES had more than 140,000 attendees this year and as always there was a lot of buzz related to emerging technology trends. Of course my filter was on to look for cool news and trends that somehow tie back to technology that JDSU provides. There were no shortage of ways to connect the dots this year.
A few highlights:
FCC Chairman made a statement during his CES speech that if you turned off the Internet, virtually every product shown at CES would be worthless.
- Makes you think about how critical it is to have state-of-the-art network infrastructures that can handle the load as we become increasingly more dependent on new wired/wireless smart devices.
- Some new devices shown included smart home appliances. There was a refrigerator that scans your grocery receipt to help you keep track of expiration of dates on food and also a way to remotely manage your oven.
Carriers showed off cool new ways they plan to drive use of 4G LTE.
- Verizon showcased an ATM that uses 4G to send and receive live video to reduce theft.
- ALU displayed a solution that would allow police and firefighters to communicate via 4G with each other with smartphones and tablets during emergencies. There has been a lot of post-911 discussion about this issue.
Gesture recognition is moving into PCs and TVs.
- Microsoft announced that Kinect is going to be a part of Windows 8. This will allow for new things like virtual keyboards and gaming from your PC.
- Samsung and LG introduced smart TVs that include gesture recognition, speech recognition and voice control. Goodbye remote!
It was good to see that CES technology buzz was alive and well this year.
Last month we launched our 2012 Tech Trends campaign offering predictions on what the future holds for development and innovation in the various markets we serve.
From wireless and broadband communications, to new energy and gesture recognition solutions, to lasers for night vision and satellites for improved weather forecasting, technology has become an integral part of our lives.
As we kick off 2012, technology will only continue to surprise us and affect our lives in new ways. As part of our campaign launch in December, we asked our fans to take a few minutes and answer some questions on what they thought was big in 2011, what they expect to see in 2012, and how they use technology on a daily basis.
Below are the top three responses from the nearly 500 people who participated in our survey:
2012 Tech Trends Survey Results
1. What was your favorite technology innovation from 2011?
- Apple product (iPad 2 or iPhone 4S): 70%
- Smartphone Wallet: 14%
- Google Plus: 8%
2. In 2012, what do you think will be the most popular way to communicate via technology?
- Online video or other social media application (Twitter, Facebook, etc.): 68%
- Text: 15%
- Email: 13%
3. What areas do you think will see the most technological advancements in 2012?
- Communications 52%
- Renewable energy 26%
- Medicine: 19%
4. Over the next year, what do you think will be the biggest area for 3D technology?
- Entertainment (video games and movies): 61%
- Medical: 26%
- Educational: 12%
5. When do you think the use of renewable energy will become mainstream in the US?
- 10 years: 41%
- 5 years: 28%
- 15 years: 24%
6. What do you use your internet connection at home for the most?
- Work: 36%
- Communicating with family and friends: 35%
- Watching movies or TV episodes: 15%
7. In the past year, how many times have you used social media to communicate during an emergency or to voice your opinion on a social/political event?
- Never: 43%
- 1 – 5 times: 38%
- 10 times or more: 19%
*Note: Percentage totals for each question above don’t total 100% as write-in responses for the “other” category are not displayed.
It’s likely you’ve heard about recent wireless network outages that have temporarily left tens of millions of mobile subscribers without service and impacted politics, global businesses and Wall Street. Clearly we are increasingly reliant on our wireless handheld devices. CTIA announced in mid-October that mobile gadgets have officially outnumbered the U.S. population of 315 million people. There are 328 million connected phones, tablets and laptops.
We often take for granted that our devices are going to work, but many people may not know about the behind-the-scenes efforts to continuously improve the quality of mobile network performance. Wireless service providers, equipment makers and communications test companies, like JDSU, work every day to ensure uninterrupted service for customers. Recent outages underscore the importance of test solutions and, as mobility expands and adoption of wireless devices accelerates, JDSU is committed to advancing test solutions for network equipment manufacturers and wireless service providers.
That’s why we’re especially excited to announce our acquisition of Dyaptive Systems today.
This acquisition extends JDSU’s presence in the wireless test market and provides us with an expanded portfolio of products to serve our customers. Dyaptive has exceptional technology that is used to emulate the performance of mobile devices and applications on wireless networks. Our customers need these solutions to effectively plan and manage their networks so their customers receive reliable, high-quality service.
Together with Dyaptive, our solutions are helping to improve the quality of wireless services for hundreds of millions of people worldwide.
In the video clip below, Jason Reinhardt, VP of Global Sales for CCOP at JDSU, discusses top priorities in 2012 and also talks about how his team is able to support so many different types of technologies for so many different markets - including optical communications technology for networks, gesture recognition, lasers, CPV for solar and more.
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