Polymer blog

30 Comments

1. Scott C (sec611) says:

   04/08/2011 at 09:55

   Key fob for a 1999 Oldsmobile Alero.
2. dave halliday says:

   04/08/2011 at 10:18

   Your I pod…after you backed over it.
3. P^2 - Paul says:

   04/08/2011 at 10:55

   The invisibility generator for Gemini Man.
4. conformation_change says:

   04/08/2011 at 11:32

   From the letters (MPCB): Multilateral Payloads Control Board. Is it a part on the International Space Station?
5. jitze says:

   04/08/2011 at 11:36

   It has 4 buttons, Start, Stop, Reset, and Ping. The plastic case was manufactured in Jan ’09 and the battery was manufactured April ’09.

   One of those thingies that a swarthy gentlemen of middle-eastern heritage recently found attached inside the plastic bumper on his car – and the Federales got all upset when he removed it and hesitated to give it back to them when they asked.
6. qu1j0t3 says:

   04/08/2011 at 12:30

   Yeah, I’d have guessed GPS+telemetry package.
7. jurvetson says:

   04/08/2011 at 12:46

   Some good chortles there, with techie sensibilities
8. jerryfi_99 says:

   04/08/2011 at 13:43

   It looks like a disposable device, of some sort (glue sealed case). It also appears to have an antenna (the wire). Possible LCD display under the battery. Jitze’s guess, as usual, looks pretty good, but… I don’t know… maybe a handheld game to keep the kids quiet in the back seat?
9. Happy Tinfoil Cat says:

   04/08/2011 at 13:45

   Looks like a bio monitoring device from the contacts and worn on the arm from the shape of it. I think that is a TI MSP430 series microcontroller which is known for long battery life. Possibly a USB interface as I’m seeing two crystals (one for the uC and another for communications port) and through hole solder pegs. I’ll guess it is a device that measures skin resistance to tell body fat, or maybe give workout readings.
10. Happy Tinfoil Cat says:

    04/08/2011 at 14:33

    focus.ti.com/docs/prod/folders/print/msp430f1612.html

    Could it monitor blood pressure / flow?
11. P^2 - Paul says:

    04/08/2011 at 14:39

    I was thinking bioimpedance analyzer too: it looks like it was originally designed for 4-terminal resistance measurements, and looks like they figured they could get away with two. But I see no opamps, and those are expensive overkill parts (micro, li-poly) for a consumer body fat widget.
12. Happy Tinfoil Cat says:

    04/08/2011 at 14:58

    There is a TLV2401 op amp (I placed a note)

    I’m surprised they used ENIG plating on the pcb considering the cost of gold in 2009. That and the expensive contacts (instead of just wiring it directly) says this may be a proto or new device that hasn’t gone through cost reduction.
13. dannyakright says:

    04/08/2011 at 15:18

    What I see on this page is a bunch of nerds! But awesome, I could never have come up with any of these answers. What do I want it to be? Time machine.
14. avlxyz says:

    04/08/2011 at 16:16

    uh… electronic jockstrap?!
15. vennettaj says:

    04/08/2011 at 16:49

    gps sensor.bike speedometer..hmm..something broken
16. solerena says:

    04/08/2011 at 17:38

    so it is one of those health care related small devices which Esther had talked about at Top Tech trends…
    “We don’t need no stinkin’ care! We’ll manage our bodies the way we manage our budgets” fun:)
17. neuraxon77@yahoo.com.au says:

    04/08/2011 at 18:37

    A device you strap to your extremities that turns you into it’s slave by zapping you.
18. AMagill says:

    04/08/2011 at 19:36

    That’s an MSP430F1612 microcontroller; 8MHz, 55KB flash, 5KB RAM (generous!), 48 GPIO, 12-bit ADC (200ksps), two 12-bit DACs, comparator, and a serial port. The Digital to Analog Converters and relatively large RAM are the less common features- I’m betting one or both are the reason this particular chip is being used. Also, MSP430s have pretty good internal clocks- no need for a crystal without a good reason, but this one has a crystal connected to its XIN and XOUT pins (8 & 9, the long narrow black thing), in addition to the second (gold-edged silver) crystal. It has no impedance-matching capacitors, which means (if I remember right) it must be using the micro’s internal capacitors which only work for 32.768KHz crystals for a real-time clock.
    I’m having a hard time reading the frequency off of that second crystal. Maybe 24MHz.. that would suggest it’s for a USB controller. I doubt there’s any wireless going on here- the only RF-conscious layout I see is around the crystal and its impedance-matching caps. Definitely no GPS.

    Hmm..
19. kyr.chan says:

    04/08/2011 at 19:51

    Radar detector?
20. jitze says:

    04/08/2011 at 19:53

    Furfther thoughts – the plastic body is concave – shaped e.g. to be strapped to a human limb such as the upper arm.

    The "buttons" are in fact sensors to pick up emf (voltage) from skin – note that one of these is commoned via wire to two more pickups elsewhere on the body of the device.

    So this is a remote sensor to pick up the pulse rate of the wearer. This is transmitted to one’s favorite excercise machine at the gym, (treadmill, rowing machine…) where pulse rate and miles travelled can be displayed on an LCD so you can pace yourself. Or maybe even a little display mounted on the handle-bars of a bridge-jumping mountain bike.
21. kyr.chan says:

    04/08/2011 at 20:37

    [http://www.flickr.com/photos/40648743@N00] Seems like that to me too. It has a receiver and a analogue to digital converter.
22. Broken Toy Shop says:

    04/08/2011 at 21:02

    It’s a doohickey.
23. Leino88 says:

    04/08/2011 at 21:26

    Reminds me of the polar heart rate monitor you wear around your chest.
24. Lars Plougmann says:

    04/08/2011 at 22:07

    It’s the telemetry unit recovered from a missile you launched 35 miles west of Los Angeles earlier this week
25. leges314 says:

    04/08/2011 at 22:51

    The shoe (heel) phone ofone Maxwell Smart…
26. sbove says:

    04/08/2011 at 23:47

    A bike light that has variable flashing patterns.
27. xouroborus says:

    04/09/2011 at 00:31

    not a bike light but a bike odometer – an old Vetta, orange button I recall?
28. jurvetson says:

    04/09/2011 at 01:14

    I love the flickr forensics team in action! Wow.

    Bingo Happy Tinfoil Cat with further details from solerena and Jitze – it is a BodyMedia FIT, exactly the unit that I was sporting at the Churchill Club event solerena mentions.
    

    

    These sensors log about 100 datapoints/second to deduce a lot about your activity. AMagill is correct that there is no GPS, but there is a bluetooth connection for phones and a wrist watch. And yes, TI makes some great extremely low power MCUs for medical devices, both implantable and strap-ons like this.

    It goes on the arm, typically… but avlxyz has me thinking now… what would the jock strap off-label use measure exactly???

    And I love some of the aspirational guesses. The Olds key fob made me chortle, and yes, this particular unit looks like it came from the heel of Get Smart

    I just uploaded my data for the first time. I was very curious about my sleep patterns. What am I doing all night? I’ll post some of the graphs now:
    

    
29. solerena says:

    04/09/2011 at 01:50

    Cool:) – maybe i will get a certificate some day: "Inside the mind of SJ"
30. The Rocketeer says:

    04/09/2011 at 02:32

    Dang… I was away from the computer too long and missed my opportunity.