How a Color Laser Printing Works

A laser printer is a type of electrophotographic printer that can range from a small, personal desktop model to a large, network printer capable of handling and printing large volumes continuously.

Laser printers require the interaction of mechanical, electrical, and optical technologies to work. Laser printers work by placing toner on an electrically charged rotating drum (sometimes called the image drum) and then depositing the toner on paper as the paper moves through the system at the same speed the drum is turning.

The video below demonstrates a how Laser Printer works

Reference

A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining Your PC, Seventh Edition

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WB0HnXcW8qQ

Cloud Storage

Cloud storage is a service model in which data is maintained, managed and backed up remotely and made available to users over a network (typically the Internet).

There are three main cloud storage models:

Public cloud storage services, such as Amazon's Simple Storage Service (S3), provide a multi-tenant storage environment that’s most suitable for unstructured data.

Private cloud storage services provide a dedicated environment protected behind an organization’s firewall. Private clouds are appropriate for users who need customization and more control over their data.

Hybrid cloud storage is a combination of the other two models that includes at least one private cloud and one public cloud infrastructure. An organization might, for example, store actively used and structured data in a private cloud and unstructured and archival data in a public cloud. 

An enterprise-level cloud storage system should be scalable to suit current needs, accessible from anywhere and application-agnostic.

reference 

http://searchcloudstorage.techtarget.com/definition/cloud-storage

Wireless Charging

Inductive charging (also known as "wireless charging") uses an electromagnetic field to transfer energy between two objects. This is usually done with a charging station. Energy is sent through an inductive coupling to an electrical device, which can then use that energy to charge batteries or run the device.

Induction chargers use an induction coil to create an alternating electromagnetic field from within a charging base station, and a second induction coil in the portable device takes power from the electromagnetic field and converts it into electrical current to charge the battery. The two induction coils in proximity combine to form an electrical transformer. Greater distances between sender and receiver coils can be achieved when the inductive charging system uses resonant inductive coupling. Recent improvements to this resonant system include using a movable transmission coil i.e. mounted on an elevating platform or arm, and the use of advanced materials for the receiver coil made of silver plated copper or sometimes aluminum to minimize weight and decrease resistance due to the skin effect.

Advantages

• Protected connections – no corrosion when the electronics are all enclosed, away from water or oxygen in the atmosphere.

• Safer for medical implants – for embedded medical devices, allows recharging/powering through the skin rather than having wires penetrate the skin, which would increase the risk of infection.

• Durability – Without the need to constantly plug and unplug the device, there is significantly less wear and tear on the socket of the device and the attaching cable.

• No e-waste

• Non-radiative energy transfer

Disadvantages

• Lower efficiency, waste heat – The main disadvantages of inductive charging are its lower efficiency and increased resistive heating in comparison to direct contact. Implementations using lower frequencies or older drive technologies charge more slowly and generate heat within most portable electronics.

• Slower charging – due to the lower efficiency, devices can take longer to charge when supplied power is the same amount.

• More expensive – Inductive charging also requires drive electronics and coils in both device and charger, increasing the complexity and cost of manufacturing.

Inkjet (new Epson Inkjet) vs. Laser Printer

Inkjet printers spray controlled dots of ink onto the paper to form characters and graphics. 

Laser Printers

• Involve heating the elements in a print-head to a particular temperature to transfer the image 
• Thermal transfer 
• Direct thermal 
• Dye sublimation

 NB: The transition between the solid and gas states without going through a liquid stage.

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b43_Or-mbNY

How Geolocation Services Work

Geolocation refers to the process of determining an object's position on a real-world map, based on its latitude and longitude. The rise of smartphones has been instrumental in putting geolocation services on the map, so to speak; most now including a Global Positioning System (GPS) chip to facilitate location services.

The GPS chip enables a device to run apps that use a person's physical location to provide specific information or services. For example, Google Maps provides driving directions from where you are to where you want to go, and Uber knows where your driver should pick you up.

Geolocation services are not reliant on GPS alone, however. They can also use Wi-Fi network proximity, cell-tower triangulation and even IP addresses although GPS remains the most accurate method. When a GPS signal is weak or unavailable, the geolocation service can turn to one or more of the other methods, often in conjunction with GPS itself.

Geolocation capabilities have become standard fare in MDM products. A lost or stolen device can represent a serious security concern, but as long as it's turned on and the tracking mechanism is enabled, an IT administrator can usually pinpoint its location. IT can also use geolocation to track corporate-owned mobile assets and push documents or apps to devices. Administrators might, for example, stagger releases based on location.

Geolocation services can also track workers suspected of questionable behavior, such as entering a restricted area or visiting a competitor's headquarters, or it can be used for multifactor user authentication. If a worker is supposed to be in Kansas, but the connection attempt is coming from Asia, something is likely wrong.

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Intel Curie

Intel’s Curie module is a tiny system-on a-chip (SoC) based on the Intel Quark SE.

The SoC is the size of a shirt button but includes everything required to provide compute power for wearable devices. The Curie module is designed to enable even inexperienced makers of wearable tech to make smart products.

Curie is equipped with a 32-bit Intel Quark SoC with 384kB of flash memory and 80kB SRAM. It comes in an easy-to-integrate package with a six-axis combo accelerometer and gyroscope sensor to enable movement tracking and gesture recognition. Curie also features a digital sensor hub with a pattern-matching accelerator, battery charging circuits. The device uses Bluetooth low energy for communications.

Curie could, in fact, be built into performance-wear buttons. Intel has announced a partnership with Oakley so it is likely that some of their products will feature it. Some other interesting products are in development, such as Nixie, a wearable drone that can take pictures and video of you as you go about your activities and iWinks, a lucid dreaming aid that uses sleep monitoring and lights to help users become aware of dream states and improve their ability to control dreams.

The SOC is named for Marie Skłodowska-Curie, a Nobel Prize-winning pioneer in the study of radioactivity. Use of the name is somewhat ironic, given that Curie died of radiation poisoning: Some experts have expressed concern about the potential radiation exposure from these small devices, which are worn on or close to the body for long periods.


Intel's Mike Bell discusses Curie and wearable tech at CES 2015:

video link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnlHXDnbwAw

This was last updated in January 2015

Contributor(s): Matthew Haughn

Posted by: Margaret Rouse

Leaky Bucket

The leaky bucket is an analogy for describing how inputs and outputs work in a wide variety of business and technology systems.

The analogy is to a physical bucket with a hole in it: The bucket can hold water up to its maximum capacity and it loses water at a rate determined by the size of the hole.

Here are some examples of the leaky bucket analogy in various contexts:

Employee security awareness training investments can yield an immediate and dramatic improvement in security practices. However, the bucket doesn’t stay full – over time, awareness dissipates (leaks). The lesson is that security awareness training must be ongoing to keep up with the rate of loss.

In customer relationship management (CRM), the leaky bucket is used to describe the churn rate: customer acquisition numbers compared to the numbers for customer attrition. The analogy is used in a similar way to model employee retention vs. employee attrition.

The leaky bucket algorithm is a method of temporarily storing a variable number of requests and organizing them into a set-rate output of packets in an asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) network.

 

This was last updated in April 2015

Contributor(s): Ivy Wigmore

Posted by: Margaret Rouse