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The struggle is real.

Everyone has experienced it, got annoyed by it, or even got lost because of it. The empty battery problem of your mobile device. With so many devices and only a limited number of electrical outlets (especially on universities) we need a solution that is both sustainable and convenient.

One solution could be to carry around a Portable charger. Although they come in many shapes and sizes, they still feel inconvenient to me to carry around. But is creating more batteries really the solution? The Lithium used for those batteries needs a tremendous amount of other metals (copper and aluminum) to work, reducing the environmental savings (Notter, et al., 2010). Another question we need to ask ourselves is whether we really want to retrieve all that lithium from the earth’s crust, as almost all of it is coming from Argentina, Bolivia & Chile. A 2007 French study concluded that “it would be irresponsible to despoil these regions for a material which can only ever be produced in sufficient quantities to serve a niche market of luxury vehicles for the top end of the market..” (Tahil, 2007).

Though Wireless charging is being promoted for a while now already, your mobile device needs to basically be on top of such a ‘wireless charging stations’. Since that isn’t very convenient in most situations a new solution has been created by Wi-Charge. The wireless charging stations that they create can charge any mobile device that is within a range of 10m of the station. The transmitter uses safe infrared beams to reach the receiver, establishing a Virtual Photonic Power Cord™ (Wi-Charge, 2017). Have a look at below video to see for yourself how it works.

Although this product is currently in its beta-testing, it will become available in the first half of 2018 in commercial public spaces. However, it is unknown if the company has plans to launch a product for charging your device inside your house (Boxall, 2017). But since walking around with a ‘power bank’ or some cables can be very inconvenient, maybe even awkward, public wireless charging seems more helpful anyway.

So, what are your thoughts on this? Will we in not too long from now take wireless charging for granted like we already do with wireless internet connections?

References

Boxall, A. (2017, August 15). No cables, no hassle: Wi-Charge’s in-room wireless charging is coming next year. Retrieved from Digital Trends: https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/wi-charge-in-room-wireless-charging-approved-fda/

Notter, D., Gauch, M., Widmer, R., Wager, P., Stamp, A., Zah, R., & Althaus, H.-J. (2010). Contribution of Li-Ion Batteries to the Environmental Impact of Electric Vehicles. Environ. Sci. Technol., 6550 – 6556.

Tahil, W. (2007, January). The trouble with Lithium: Implications of Future PHEV Production for Lithium Demand. Retrieved from Meridian International Research: http://www.meridian-int-res.com/Projects/EVRsrch.htm

Wi-Charge. (2017). Technology. Retrieved from Wi-Charge: https://www.wi-charge.com/technology/

5/5 (1)

Do you ever play video games? Do you see yourself as a gamer? Yes? No?

Whatever your answers are to these questions, you must’ve heard of the discussion on the influences of certain video games on its users. A 2015 survey by PEW Research Center showed that 76% of adults do not agree with the statement that “most games are not a waste of time” and only 11% of adults agree that “video games are a better form of entertainment than TV” (Duggan, 2015). Now I do agree that many video games are not adding any value to anyone else but the gamer, but we could take the step to change this around a full 180 degrees. Digital technologies have already enabled multiple initiatives to do so. Let’s take a quick look at two examples.

Have you ever heard of the game Genes in Space? It is a game developed by Cancer Research UK to help them analyze their data retrieved from gene microarrays. Over 400,000 people worldwide played the game and were able to collectively analyze close to 5,000,000 nuggets of data, which represented the entire genomes of 1980 patients, each checked 50 times for accuracy (Cancer Research UK, n.d.).

A second game is Foldit, an online puzzle game from 2011. This game about protein folding helped researchers to “resolve the structure of an enzyme that causes an Aids-like disease in monkeys” (Mohammadi, 2014). Gamers solved this puzzle in three weeks, after researchers had already spend 13 years on it.

There are far more games alike these two, enabling anyone to help science. But why are companies not yet investing in creating games that would help them analyze their big data? In a time where the amount of data created is doubled at least every two years, the pressure on big data analysts is high. Adding to that that 40% of companies are struggling to find and retain data analytics talent (Business.com Editorial staff, 2017) would make it seem that any help available can be deemed useful.

So wouldn’t it make a lot of sense if, especially large, companies start to invest their money in finding ways to feed their big data into games? Assuming that such a game could be made attractive to play, they would potentially be able to reach millions of gamers around the globe who can help them finding patterns in their data and understand the data better. Especially since we know that we spend around 3 billion hours a week playing online games (Mohammadi, 2014), the potential could be enormous. The data could then be replaced by objects or other things in a game to protect the data itself, as almost no company would want to have their big data open to the public. For example, in the game Genes in Space, the gene data was masked in the form of a substance called ‘Element Alpha’.

Could you imagine such a development to come, or do you know of any way this is already being applied? Or do you see major problems that would make this impossible? I would be very curious to hear what your thoughts are on this.

References

Business.com Editorial staff. (2017, February 22). Big Data, Big Problem: Coping With Shortage of Talent in Data Analysis. Retrieved from Business.com: https://www.business.com/articles/big-data-big-problem-coping-with-shortage-of-talent-in-data-analysis/

Cancer Research UK. (n.d.). The Projects. Retrieved from Cancer Research UK: http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/support-us/citizen-science/the-projects#citizenscience1

Duggan, M. (2015, December 15). Gaming and Gamers. Retrieved from PEW Research Center: http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/12/15/gaming-and-gamers/

Mohammadi, D. (2014, January 25). How online gamers are solving science’s biggest problems. Retrieved from The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jan/25/online-gamers-solving-sciences-biggest-problems

Wi-Charge: Making wireless charging convenient

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Gamers, analyzing your big data for you?

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