Technology

It is a fun and luxury to you, when you go somewhere by driving your own car. However, at the same time, the risks, associated with car driving, can never be overlooked. In most of the car collision cases, it has been seen that the drivers’ carelessness is highly responsible for it. While driving a car continuously for a number of hours, a driver may become much tired. And due to this fatigue, the risk of accidents gets increased. Now, in this present technological era, the researchers have tried to alleviate these hazards with the introduction of Driver Assistance System.

A weary driver has some common habits–

No matter whether you are driving the car with your own effort or have appointed someone to do so, it’s impossible to analyze the exhaustion level. While a driver becomes weary, he may not give proper attention to the highway or his head nods very often. He rubs his eyes continuously or yawns at times. But, as a passenger, you may not be able to identify all these things throughout your journey. That is why innovative Driver Assistance System comes to a wonderful help to you and your vehicle chauffeur.

Detecting drivers’ fatigue with technology-

Researchers of Polytechnic University of Valencia and UGR have developed the affordable Driver Assistance System, which easily makes out the symptoms, revealing the tiredness of driver. It also warns the distraction of driver in order to avert the possibilities of accidents on the highway.

The new Driver Assistance System has 4 sensors integrated with it. All these sensors have the task of observing the physical condition of your car operators. At the same time, it also assesses their pose at car’s wheel. Two are pressure-related sensors, while others are for temperature. An extra light sensor has also been added to headrest in order to know whether the driver is snoozing at the time of running the car.  With the determination of various results, the Driver Assistance System technology is powerful enough to produce some acoustic warnings, whenever there are risks. So, your driver will become alert of the possible mishap.

While alarm system gets activated, your driver may turn it off by hitting the button for resetting.

Another integrated part, found in the Driver Assistance System, is electronic panel, which works as CPU. All these are linked with collision sensing system, which identifies sudden car braking or collisions.

The major role of CPU is to collect information from every sensor and at every instance. It also assesses them with the application of algorithm in order to know whether all the obtained results are to be considered as safe for driver. While any sensor does beyond the set level, algorithm determines whether this is the right alarm. When everything is correct, alarm system is automatically triggered.

The dedicated researchers are still trying to add GPS receiving system to know information on vehicles’ position in Driver Assistance System. Thus, driving becomes quite safer with these innovations. And, the rate of accidents may also get decreased.

The mega tech company, Apple has been the centre of attraction in social media platform and news reports in the last few weeks. Though, the company decided not to make any official statement, new reports surrounding the company has been escalating. The company was the subject of numerous rumors and reports, including one that stated that the company is all set to test its self driving car. This news report confirmed that Apple has been working for quite some time on its ‘secretive’ project. The company was also the subject of a latest survey which concluded, that Apple is extremely popular amongst teenagers.

Google Earth has remained stagnant for quite some time and this has not gone well with the Google at all. Therefore Google was working towards overhauling the current version and replaced with the new exciting one on the Earth Day event in New York City on April 18.

The world has all the ears on the technology news and what if the news is from the greatest smart phone maker in the world- Apple about the self-driving cars. Well, it surely catches the attention of all the netizens as well as those who are cars frenzy. Apple was given a nod to go with their project of self-driving cars after months of speculation. This has been a great chance for them to showcase their potential in automotive technology. Like Google, they were given three Lexus SUVs for the autonomous cars testing. After obtaining the green signal from the California’s DMV. Apple is now pushing its limits to make a mark in the field of automotive industry.

THE TEST

Like the other cars or companies, Apple will also have its human drivers behind the wheels once they hit the roads of California. Hover, Apple has to compete with the other automobile giants like the BMW, Ford, Honda and many more. There were speculations about the project. There were often rumour about the technology news with regards to driving cars from Apple. Some said that the Apple was going to name the project like “Apple car”, “the iCar”, “Project Titan”

THE RUMOURS

Well, some reports came out that the company would be manufacturing driving vehicles while some were focused to spread that the tech giant company was building software for the automobile industry. The software could be used in multipurpose in automobiles. The technology news that buzzed and caught everyone’s ears was that Apple was building cars which were driven by electric or battery much like the Tesla cars. Well, it would certainly put Musk in thoughts. In the late 2015, when Apple hired the automotive engineers, there was a fresh wave of rumour.

THE CHANGE

There was a change in the assigned task for which the engineers were hired. They were mainly asked to focus on the software part for the self-driving cars. Whatever Apple does will be the attention for all the people in the world. Now Apple is just waiting for the right time to build the world’s first innovative self-driving cars. The report states that Apple is the 30^th company to bag the deal of self-driving cars.  This is indeed a big achievement for the tech giant company who are leaders in the smart phones. This is a great idea to get a kick start in the field of automotive industry. Apple will slowly get the permits in California for all the necessary things required in self-driving.

THE SPECULATIONS

Even after getting the permit from the concerned authorities, there is still a speculation on what actually Apple is working. There has been no confirmed news from the company. It is however to be seen to what dimension the work gets into. The more technology they put into will make the cars more accident free and reduce the chance of any casualties in the near future. So, we just need to have patience and wait for the confirmed news to break out.

Graphene is an allotrope of carbon which forms a thin layer of carbon atoms bonded together in a hexagonal honeycomb. Isolated in 2004, it has remarkable physical properties that can be applied to a number of things.

The news of its invention created a frenzy in the world of science as Graphene was the thinnest material known which is 150 times stronger than steel and can stretch to 120% of its length. Around the world, research institutions have been trying to develop ways to revolutionize the production of  sheets.

Technology has made this possible by the reduction of Graphene oxide into rGO or reduced Graphene oxide.  This is an extremely vital process which impacts the quality of the rGO produced. It can be achieved by chemical, thermal or electrochemical processes.

It is no news that scientists had already found a number of methods to rGO in the past. This could be done through a number of technological means such as:

• Treating Graphene oxide with hydrazine hydrate.
• Exposing it to hydrogen plasma or a strong pulse light.
• Directly heating Graphene oxide or heating it in distilled water at varying degrees.
• Combining it with an expansion-reduction agent like urea.
• Linear sweep voltammetry.

The major flaw of this technology is that chemical reduction has resulted in poor yields in terms of surface area and electronic conductibility. Thermal reduction structurally damages Graphene platelets with pressure build-up and release of carbon dioxide. According to recent news, electrochemical Graphene reduction is the best method to produce high quality rGO, which is almost similar to pristine Graphene.

According to Jay Narayan, it is extremely conductive but it is not a semiconductor. That is why he created rGO. Researchers in his lab, Narayan and AnaghBhaumikwere able to convert p-type or positively charged rGO into n-type or negatively charged rGO and create a layered material.

This material can be used to develop rGO based transistors that can be used in electronic devices.  They achieved this by implementing a completely new kind of technology where they combined rGO into the entirety of wafers made of silicon or sapphire.

This successful wafer-scale integration was done through a pulsed laser deposition technique.  The researchers used laser to confuse chemical groups and move electrons across groups, throughout the wafer. This effectively converted positively charged rGO to negatively charged rGO in a process of pulsed laser annealing using a nanosecond ArF excimer laser.

This wafer scale integration is done at regular room temperature and pressure and takes about 1/5th of a microsecond for completion. It results in a wafer with negatively charged rGO layered on the surface and positively charged rGO layered underneath.

The p-n intersection where the p-type and the n-type meet is extremely important for transistor applications. News of this scientific breakthrough has taken the world of researchers by storm as it has opened up a new frontier for further extensive research in Graphene-based functionalized 2D materials.