Yara Birkeland World First Auto Container Ship to Launch in 2018

Yara Birkeland World First Auto Container Ship Update: Norway-based Yara has revealed its plans to develop the world’s first all-electric and autonomous container ship that is predicted to remove 747 tons (678 tonnes) of carbon dioxide from the air by reducing diesel-powered truck haulage by 40,000 journeys a year.

Named ‘Yara Birkeland’, the high tech Yara Birkeland World First Auto Container Ship is set to sail in 2018 - it will initially be operated as a manned vessel, but the team has noted 2020 as when it will be fully autonomous. It is set to be the first ship to sail the seas without a single human on board.

Read: PMSA Biggest Maritime Patrol Vessel

The roads are becoming overcrowded with the number of tech giants and carmakers racing to release a fleet of self-driving taxis.

But, while they fight over the roads, Yara Birkeland World First Auto Container Ship is set to take over the seas.

The firm has teamed up with maritime technology company Kongsberg to build what is deemed an ‘innovation to protect our planet’.

Svein Tore Holsether, President and CEO of YARA said:

"Every day, more than 100 diesel truck journeys are needed to transport products from YARA's Porsgrunn plant to ports in Brevik and Larvik where we ship products to customers around the world."

Svein Tore Holsether added:

"With this new autonomous battery-driven container vessel we move transport from road to sea and thereby reduce noise and dust emissions, improve the safety of local roads, and reduce NOx and CO2 emissions."

Kongsberg is tasked with the development and delivery of all key enabling technologies on Yara Birkeland World First Auto Container Ship including the sensors and integration required for remote and autonomous operations, in addition to the electric drive, battery and propulsion control systems.

Geir Håøy, President and CEO of Kongsberg, said:

"By moving container transport from land to sea, YARA Birkeland is the start of a major contribution to fulfilling national and international environmental impact goals."

The new concept of Yara Birkeland World First Auto Container Ship is also a giant step forward towards increased seaborne transportation in general.

And the firms noted that Kongsberg’s integrated control and monitory system are already capable of providing technology for remote and unmanned operations.
Håøy added:

"Developing systems for autonomous operations is a major opening and natural step for KONGSBERG, considering our decades of expertise in the development and integration of advanced sensors, control and communication systems for all areas of ship operations."

Yara Birkeland World First Auto Container Ship will set the benchmark for the application of innovative maritime technology for more efficient and environment friendly shipping.

Via: Mehran Post

First Battery Free Backscatter Technique Cell Phone Invented by University of Washington Scientists

First Battery Free Backscatter Technique Cell Phone Update: University of Washington (UW) researchers have invented a cellphone that requires no batteries — a major leap forward in moving beyond chargers, cords and dying phones. Instead, the phone harvests the few micro-watts of power it requires from either ambient radio signals or light.

The team also made Skype calls using its battery-free phone, demonstrating that the prototype made of commercial, off-the-shelf components can receive and transmit speech and communicate with a base station.

The new technology is detailed in a paper published July 1 in the Proceedings of the Association for Computing Machinery on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies.

The team of UW computer scientists and electrical engineers eliminated a power-hungry step in most modern cellular transmissions — converting analog signals that convey sound into digital data that a phone can understand. This process consumes so much energy that it’s been impossible to design a phone that can rely on ambient power sources.

Instead, the First Battery Free Backscatter Technique Cell Phone takes advantage of tiny vibrations in a phone’s microphone or speaker that occur when a person is talking into a phone or listening to a call.

An antenna connected to those components converts that motion into changes in standard analog radio signal emitted by a cellular base station. This process essentially encodes speech patterns in reflected radio signals in a way that uses almost no power.

The first thing the team tackled in First Battery Free Backscatter Technique Cell Phone was communication. Scientists developed a technique called backscatter that allows a device to communicate by reflecting incoming radio waves, a bit like an injured hiker sending an SOS using the sun and a mirror.

To transmit speech, the First Battery Free Backscatter Technique Cell Phone uses vibrations from the device’s microphone to encode speech patterns in the reflected signals. To receive speech, it converts encoded radio signals into sound vibrations that that are picked up by the phone’s speaker. In the prototype device, the user presses a button to switch between these two “transmitting” and “listening” modes.

Using off-the-shelf components on a printed circuit board, the team demonstrated that the prototype can perform basic phone functions — transmitting speech and data and receiving user input via buttons. Using Skype, researchers were able to receive incoming calls, dial out and place callers on hold with the First Battery Free Backscatter Technique Cell Phone phone.

The team designed a custom base station to transmit and receive the radio signals. But that technology conceivably could be integrated into standard cellular network infrastructure or Wi-Fi routers now commonly used to make calls.

Co-author Vamsi Talla, a former UW electrical engineering doctoral student and Allen School research associate said:

“You could imagine in the future that all cell towers or Wi-Fi routers could come with our base station technology embedded in it.”

Vamsi Talla added:

“And if every house has a Wi-Fi router in it, you could get battery-free cellphone coverage everywhere.”

The battery-free phone does still require a small amount of energy to perform some operations. The prototype has a power budget of 3.5 micro-watts.

The UW researchers demonstrated how to harvest this small amount of energy from two different sources. The battery-free phone prototype can operate on power gathered from ambient radio signals transmitted by a base station up to 31 feet away.

Using power harvested from ambient light with a tiny solar cell — roughly the size of a grain of rice — the device was able to communicate with a base station that was 50 feet away.

Many other battery-free technologies that rely on ambient energy sources, such as temperature sensors or an accelerometer, conserve power with intermittent operations.

They take a reading and then “sleep” for a minute or two while they harvest enough energy to perform the next task. By contrast, a phone call requires the device to operate continuously for as long as the conversation lasts.

Co-author Bryce Kellogg, a UW electrical engineering doctoral student said:

“You can’t say hello and wait for a minute for the phone to go to sleep and harvest enough power to keep transmitting.”

Bryce Kellogg added:

“That’s been the biggest challenge — the amount of power you can actually gather from ambient radio or light is on the order of 1 or 10 micro-watts. So real-time phone operations have been really hard to achieve without developing an entirely new approach to transmitting and receiving speech.”

Next, the research team plans to focus on improving the battery-free phone’s operating range and encrypting conversations to make them secure. The team is also working to stream video over a battery-free cellphone and add a visual display feature to the phone using low-power E-ink screens.

A few years ago no one would have believed that we’d ever get a device without battery but now with the first ever Wireless Charging Notebook and now this battery less phone, seems like the future is wireless.

The research was funded by the National Science Foundation and Google Faculty Research Awards.

Via: Mehran Post

Khazanay First Online Landa Bazar of Pakistan Now Buy Cheap Branded Products

Khazanay First Online Landa Bazar Update: Bazaars like ‘itwar bazar’, ‘jumma bazar’ and landa bazar are the places where you can find almost all types of used branded products and those too, with a very cheap price. Bazaars like these are present in different cities all across Pakistan. Even though these bazaars are widespread and in reach of almost everybody, many people miss out on them due to a variety of reasons.

With the availability of 3G and 4G technologies, a new idea of bringing the landa bazaar to the online world has come forward. Recently, an online landa bazaar named Khazanay.pk has been launched by Muhammad Usman Saleem and Fareedun.

About the Online Landa Bazar

The Khazanay First Online Landa Bazar website uses a 10-star rating system to identify the conditions of all the products on sale at the online store. Khazanay First Online Landa Bazar staff also post photos of the items along with item listings. Currently, the Khazanay First Online Landa Bazar only sells branded shirts and shoes. All items are cleaned up and examined before being put up for sale.

To give you an example, buyers can get shoes for as low as Rs. 500 and shirts at Rs. 350. The current stock offers a wide range of shoes and shirts for kids, men and ladies at affordable prices. And that’s just the start.

The Idea and Future Plans

The idea of launching a Khazanay First Online Landa Bazar came to the founders when they grew tired of their own jobs. Both founders of the online bazar are Chartered Accountants who wanted to start their own business.

Read: HEC Online Degree Verification Attestation System Introduced for Degree Holders

Having a home close to a Sunday Bazar and looking at all the development in the e-commerce sector gave them the idea of starting their own online shop of used products.

On the very first day, the store received 7 orders and the number has been growing ever since. Within the next few months, number of orders increased up to 50.

The business has now become 18 months old and even though they are providing free shipment, the business is still profitable.

On the other hand, the founders of the company have also presented their ideas to Silicon Valley startup incubator and have been successfully selected for incubation. Within the next six months, the team will be called to the US for further procedures.

Previously, their idea was supported by IBA’s incubator which gave them office space and gave them the opportunity to use interns from the university.

While talking to BBC Urdu, Usman told that they started with just selling shoes from Nike, Reebok, and Adidas and as the store gained momentum, they started to add shirts too. He also told that they will add household items and toys to the website in the coming days.

The founders of the website, Fareedun and Usman told that there is a vast area for further growth of the company and they are currently looking for investors to help them improve their online bazar even further.

In a country like Pakistan, the trend of buying cheap used items from landa bazaar is not going to die any time soon. With the launch of khazanay.pk, buyers now have a choice to order items straight to their house without having to visit the crowded market places.

If done right, this model just might end up bringing more budget-conscious consumers to online shopping. Perhaps this just might make shopping online in Pakistan all the more mainstream.

Via: Mehran Post

Ghazala Sharif First Lady Police SHO Lahore Appointed in a Regular Police Station

Ghazala Sharif First Lady Police SHO Lahore Update: After 19 years, a woman has been appointed as the station house officer (SHO) at a regular police station in Lahore.

DIG Operations Dr Haider Ashraf promoted Ghazala Sharif to the post of the Rang Mahal Police Station SHO – making her the first woman to have been appointed to this position in the city after 19 years.

Ghazala Sharif First Lady Police SHO Lahore told ARY News that:

“This is great initiative by police authorities who expressed their trust in me,” she said while speaking to ARY News correspondent Sania Chaudhry. ”

Ghazala Sharif First Lady Police SHO Lahore added:

"This is the first time in 19 years a woman has been appointed as SHO, and I hope to live up to the expectations and trust confided in me.”

Besides, sub-inspector Nabila Kausar has been appointed the SHO of the women’s Race Course Police Station (RCPS).

Lahore, the provincial capital of Punjab, a city of approximately 15 million people, has 84 police stations. However, there is only one women’s police station in the city. The RCPS is used to keep female suspects behind bars. Cases whereby both the suspect and the person who has filed a complaint are female are registered at the RCPS.

The DIG’s step to appoint a female SHO came as a result of new officers receiving training specifically for this post. A refresher and training course of over a 100 inspectors and sub-inspectors including women was conducted at the Qila Gujjar Singh Police Lines.

There are five more female officers who are going under training and doing refresher course for SHOs. They would also be considered to be posted as SHOs.

The purpose of the refresher course was to bring forth new officers who could be posted as SHOs.

For many years, the police department, because of a shortage of trained officers, have had to persist with a certain pool of officers to fill the SHO slots.

Apart from Ghazala, other female sub-inspectors are also taking the refresher course so that they can be considered for appointment as SHOs.

We wish best of luck to Ghazala Sharif First Lady Police SHO Lahore.

Via: Mehran Post