TECHNOLOGY:
Watch This Space
September 4th is the date Samsung will hold their next ‘Unpacked’ event. The last Samsung Unpacked event was mid-March. And they treated us by releasing the new Samsung Galaxy S4 phone.
The general hype for Unpacked 2 seems to be around the next version of the Samsung Galaxy Note ‘Phablet’. But there are murmurings around that the next Unpacked could also reveal Samsung’s foray into the world of wearable tech.
We’ve written about the ongoing trend of wearable tech and immersive technology for some time. It seems as though the race for the ‘all market share grabbing’ smart watch is about to really heat up.
Samsung filed a patent with the US patent office for the Samsung Galaxy Gear (SGG), a truly ‘smart’ smartwatch.
When it comes to wearable tech, the only real consumer-ready devices so far are the fitness tracking devices like Jawbone Up and Nike+. There is the Pebble Smartwatch, but beyond all the initial hype, there’s not much to get too excited about.
However, should Samsung release the Galaxy Gear at Unleashed 2 in a month’s time it will be the first true smartwatch. The difference between the SGG and something like Sony’s Smartwatch is the SGG will be running it’s own completely separate operating system, rather than just being a Bluetooth peripheral like a hands free kit is.
So get ready, because it’s happening. It’s been some time in the making but Samsung is going to kick off the wearable tech race. It’s only a matter of time until Apple gets one out, and Microsoft.
As they come to market your humble technology analyst here will be getting his pre-order in along with the other bits of kit still in the pipeline. (Leap Motion Controller, Muse Mind Reading Headband, MYO Motion Controlling Armband)
Here’s hoping the final product is as good as the hype!
HEALTH:
The Molecular Revolution Is Coming Home
We are confident that we are at the beginning of a whole new era in human history. We call it the Molecular Revolution.
Part of this revolution will include getting friendly with the building blocks of life. The nanoscopic strands we call DNA. You see once we all get to know the ins and outs of our unique DNA codes we can start to look after ourselves better.
Not only that, but the molecular revolution will bring about the ability to check on our own health. We can start to analyse ourselves when we’re getting sick, and be confident in the diagnosis.
And now in the next 12 months a consumer device is going to hit the market which puts DNA analysis into the home. The company brining this new device to market is Biomeme, and they’re set to rock the field of medicine with their device.
It started a number of years ago in Vietnam when Jesse vanWestrienen (Co-founder) contracted both dengue fever and malaria at the same time. It the remote parts of Vietnam, the biggest problem he faced was the inability to get a diagnosis.
This sparked something which led Jessie to team up with Marc DeJohn and Max Perelman to create Biomeme.
In short their new device is ‘Real time DNA analysis on a smartphone’.
The device works by connecting a mHealth app to the docking station. Then it essentially acts like a ‘photocopy machine for DNA’.
The hardware combined with the smartphone app then goes about analysing the sample provided in the test cartridges. And within the space of a few minutes it can detect specific DNA signatures and give a diagnosis.
A good example used by Perelman is for food safety analysis. You can put a spinach leaf sample in the docking station that’s carrying a tiny DNA strand of E.Coli on it. The machine and the software would be able to detect that single strand of E.Coli and quickly give you a diagnosis of infection.
The end game for Biomeme is human health. They want their device in every mobile and point of care clinic around the world. And there’s no reason to suggest every home couldn’t have one too.
You could put a drop of blood in the docking station to analyse it. In a few minutes the software will be able to tell you if you’re sick or not. It’s like having a mini hospital in your home. And it’s further proof of the Personalised Medicine trend.
Doctors working in remote areas could carry one with them. It would provide advanced DNA lab technology in a small mobile device, 1/10th the cost of normal DNA machines.
Biomeme are currently undergoing a capital raising. And they plan to launch a round of Series A funding mid next year. We have no doubt they’ll be successful, and at that point the Biomere will become more than a start-up but potentially a household name.
ENERGY:
Why Roads Will Solve The Biggest Problem With Electric Vehicles
Here’s what’s going to happen in the not-to-distant future. Your car will just be a vessel that shuttles you from point A to point B. There will be no ‘driving’ so to speak. In fact the term ‘car’ is probably inaccurate. Because the ‘car’ will be very different to what we now know it as.
The future of it will be more like personalised public transport. But work with us for a minute here.
If car companies really wanted to go automatic, the technology exists for them to do so today. For example the new Mercedes S-Class had the available tech to go fully automatic. But according to Merc, the world wasn’t quite ready for it yet.
We’re not far away from removing human element when it comes to driving. That’s a good thing in our book for your day to day commute. The thrill and sheer enjoyment of driving on open windy roads, or racetracks however is a different discussion for a different setting.
Anyway let’s keep on topic. In the future you’ll have an automated pod-like vehicle that gets you around. Traffic will flow with ease and accidents will be virtually non-existent. Happy days for all.
But what about fuel and refilling you ask? Good question. Because you know our answer to that is these pods will be electric. Now that’s good and well, but we all know electric vehicles still require charging. Also the range of EV’s is somewhat limited.
Well, not anymore thanks to revolutionary technology. You know we don’t joke when we continuously say our world is undergoing unprecedented change at a rate never before seen. And this is no different.
South Korea just launched a new bus onto a 24km round route between Gumi train station and In-dong district. Now this bus for one is purely electric. But the really breakthrough thing is it can more or less run forever without needing to be plugged in to charge.
Here’s the press release from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST),
‘[Online Electric Vehicle] OLEV receives power wirelessly through the application of the “Shaped Magnetic Field in Resonance (SMFIR)” technology. SMFIR is a new technology introduced by KAIST that enables electric vehicles to transfer electricity wirelessly from the road surface while moving. Power comes from the electrical cables buried under the surface of the road, creating magnetic fields. There is a receiving device installed on the underbody of the OLEV that converts these fields into electricity. The length of power strips installed under the road is generally 5%-15% of the entire road, requiring only a few sections of the road to be rebuilt with the embedded cables.’
In short the bus gets its electrical charge from the road. Now picture the electric transport pods we described earlier on roads like the ones KAIST are using…
No more fuel, just clean, green power from the road without too much disruption to existing infrastructure. It’s the future of personal transportation, and it’s exciting.
Sam Volkering
Technology Analyst, Revolutionary Tech Investor
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