Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Heisenberg Exits Forthwith, Whereabouts Uncertain

There are many dimensions to our universe, some say it is fixed at 4 or 5, others state a 12 dimensional universe actually makes the math in a grand unified theory nearly work.  A good entry level book on this subject is Hyperspace by Dr. Michio Kaku - http://www.amazon.com/Hyperspace-Scientific-Odyssey-Parallel-Universes/dp/0385477058 .



Space and Time are funny things, interrelated and so very separate. Into this fray comes the company Alien which has announced a product which can tell the speed and location of a tagged item. The article



RFID reader can now identify velocity, position of tags



http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9917346-7.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20



discusses possible uses for airport and military cargo. I see the possibility of using this technology for environment automation. Many green initiatives require occupancy sensing to minimize energy use in unused rooms. Most of these 'people counters' are microwave sensors which only indicate movement or,when mounted to a door frame, numbers in and out of a room. This is a highly inefficient method as the timing between sensing a presence and sensing no presence is awkwardly long.  Imagine using this Alien RFID product to sense presence, speed of the person and by extension direction - to intelligently decide just how bright to make each room traveled through and prepare the next room to be entered.   This is a much more efficient method where the lights are kept on only to ensure an individual can see enough to travel through safely, no time delay.  This is only one possible application, silly versions can have doors open slower or faster depending on your travel speed - thus helping avoid a crash into a half open\closed door.



Now, does this make the   CERN ATLAS particle accelerator  unneeded?



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