[HN Gopher] With a simple piece of paper, engineers create self-... ___________________________________________________________________ With a simple piece of paper, engineers create self-powered, wireless keyboard Author : based2 Score : 40 points Date : 2020-09-06 19:58 UTC (3 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.smithsonianmag.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.smithsonianmag.com) | yjftsjthsd-h wrote: | A simple piece of paper... With circuits printed on it. Kinda | neat tech, totally clickbait title. | eikenberry wrote: | I was expecting different click-bait, like a keyboard drawn on | paper with a camera pointed at it or something. | aaaxyz wrote: | I had imagined they had built it by carefully folding the paper | to give each "key" a distinctive sound that a nearby computer | could decode into key presses | withinboredom wrote: | Maybe "spell books" in ancient "history" were just interfaces for | the time travelers. | codebje wrote: | Scott Meyer's "Magic 2.0" series is more or less this idea. | retox wrote: | From the headline I thought it was related to a video I saw years | ago for a television remote control from a French (I think) | hardware engineer. It was only a prototype but it replaced the | batteries with a piezoelectric mechanism that generated enough of | a charge from physically depressing the button to send the | infrared signal. Probably not enough power there to reliably send | a bluetooth signal though. | ykevinator wrote: | Super neat. But a solution looking for a problem. | ineedasername wrote: | They did that with a "simple" piece of paper? Imagine what they | could do with a "complex" piece of paper! | | More seriously, we've seen attempts to make flat keyboards [0]. | The lack of haptic feedback limits them to niche devices. If they | can do more than just input devices though, I'd be much more | interested. | | [0] https://www.amazon.com/AGS-Wireless-Projection-Bluetooth- | Sma... | sosborn wrote: | Would you consider soft keyboard implementations in modern | smartphones as niche applications? | nkingsy wrote: | The Q+A section of that product is like some kind of reddit | comment chain. | sthnblllII wrote: | The lack of details is infuriating. It makes it sound like they | implemented a compliant bluetooth chip at 1/1000th the cost size | and power of commercial solutions. | shakna wrote: | The actual paper [0] does have some decent details, though it | is somewhat heavy. | | [0] https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nanoen.2020.105301 | davidhyde wrote: | Too bad they published it through Elsevier. I would have | liked to read their paper. | CamperBob2 wrote: | That's what sci-hub.tw is for. | Palomides wrote: | from skimming the paper, the big advance here is a moisture/oil | resistant "triboelectric nanogenerator", which generates energy | from touch or vibration, and they could get stable power out of | it long enough to do a bluetooth transmission with a standard | (conventional) bluetooth chip (an adafruit bluefruit, | apparently) | | the moisture/oil resistant part is a big deal for actually | using it in the real world | rcarmo wrote: | This has a certain "Diamond Age" vibe to it. I'm all for single- | function devices as individual pieces of "smart" paper. | Aardwolf wrote: | Imagine if this were not a piece of paper, but a mechanical | keyboard where the clicky action of the keys generates enough | energy for the self powered wirelessness! | vsskanth wrote: | Can anyone ELI5 this for me ? I am unable to access the paper and | the abstract is way too technical for me to make sense. If I | understand this right, they are using friction to generate power, | but how are they doing Bluetooth wireless transmission ? Is the | bluetooth circuit and antenna also printed on the paper ? | ramoz wrote: | I worked on a project with Novalia a few years back, they have | a simple way of explaining their tech: | https://www.novalia.co.uk/platforms/ | | We needed a small battery coin for some unique interactions, | not sure if that was needed, & not sure/didnt read what Purdue | is doing different with self-power. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2020-09-06 23:00 UTC)