Technology trends

Technology trends

American Science & Engineering Inc. (Billerica, MA) has been awarded a patent for its MobileSearch vehicle and cargo inspection system. This system uses the company`s proprietary¥Backscatter x-ray technology for inspecting cars and trucks. It can scan a line of stationary vehicles and large containers to detect explosives, drugs, and weapons.

Advanced Precision Technology Inc. (San Francisco, CA) has received a Notice of Allowance on an additional US patent application covering its Miniature Fingerprint Sensor using a Trapezoidal Prism and a Holographic Optical Element. The company is planning to release its HoloPass fingerprint imaging technologies in multiple packaging options, including desktop, wall-mount, and smart-card readers, this month.

Toshiba Corp. in Japan has developed a large CCD area-image sensor for digital still cameras. Structured as a 20-pin DIP ceramic package, the TCD5603D 1/2-in. interline sensor is said to provide a 1590 ¥ 1024 or 1.66 million pixel count and a 7.51 ¥ 5.01-mm image size. Every pixel contains an RGB filter organized in a cross-striped array so that pixels with a green filter are always diagonally adjacent to one another. Operating with a horizontal drive of 15.8 MHz, four-field interline scanning combines data from four pixels in forming individual fields at up to 8.8 frames/second.

Spectrum Signal Processing (Burnaby, BC, Canada) has unveiled an on-line evaluation design tool at its Web site, www.SpectrumSignal.com. This tool helps designers, who are developing DSP systems, evaluate which floating-point DSP, VelociTI, or Sharc architecture would best fit their specific application requirements. This unbiased, third-party-developed, comparative-analysis mechanism uses Texas Instruments` and Analog Devices` software tools to evaluate processors from a system-level perspective.

Optiquest Inc. (Walnut, CA) has extended its three-year warranty to its entire line of 14- to 21-in. color monitors. The new warranty covers parts, labor, and cathode-ray tube.

Merge Technologies Inc. (Milwaukee, WI) has begun shipping MergeARK, a new medical digital image-archival system. This system stores diagnostic images on recordable CDs in DICOM 3.0 format for later network retrieval as film reprints that support patient records and telemedicine over the Internet.