To be continued.....

Yesterday was just another day for me……..classes, lectures, roaming, chatting, lab…..I’ve lost the count of how many days I’ve been like this…..

During one of the chatting session, one of the guys said about the possible cell phone raid [OK, don’t laugh!!]. As all of us know that will be an eyewash raid, we didn’t give it a care. Sooraj made fun of Madan that his brand new Sony Ericsson mobile worth 13000 rs/- will get caught. Then only I saw his new phone, and was said that it has Shake control. I’ve heard of it before, but never knew the mechanism behind it…. So I decided to browse about it.

Well, it all started by Apple Inc, when it introduced iPhone. You might have noticed that when you change iPhone position from portrait to landscape, or vice versa, the picture will change automatically.

Shake control is evolved from this. It all lies on a small instrument called ACCELEROMETER present in the instrument.

An accelerometer detects magnitude and direction of the acceleration as a vector quantity, and can be used to sense orientation, vibration and shock.

The accelerometer inside iPod touch uses three elements: silicon mass, a set of silicon springs, and an electrical current. The silicon springs measure the position of the silicon mass using the electrical current. Rotating iPod touch causes a fluctuation in the electrical current passing through the silicon springs. The accelerometer registers these fluctuations and tells iPod touch to adjust the display accordingly.

The shake control also uses similar kind of accelerometer to sense the shake and control the mobile functions.

The latest improvement in this Shake technology is Shake TV remote.

The remote control in the picture doesn’t need any batteries to make it work. The Shake Control is a concept TV remote that works simply by shaking it. Just move it in different directions to change the channels or the volume. The remote has a visible arrow-shaped magnet and coils of wire inside. All those components will generate 20-30mA current when the device is shaken. Then the gravity sensor measures the direction of the shake and delivers the corresponding result.

It is a good news for environmentalists, but a bad news for lazy channel surfers like me…..c’mon guys, every time we have to shake our hand to change a channel…this is unfair…..

To Be Continued………