Stretching for thousands of miles beneath oceans, optical fibers now connect every continent except for Antarctica. With less data loss and higher bandwidth, optical-fiber technology allows information to zip around the world, bringing pictures, video, and other data from every corner of the globe to your computer in a split second. But although optical fibers are increasingly replacing copper wires, carrying information via photons instead of electrons, today
A new robot using high-precision tactile sensors and flexible motor control technology has taken Japan one step closer to its goal of providing high-quality care for its growing elderly population. The new robot can lift a patient up to 80 kilograms in weight off floor-level bedding and into a wheelchair, freeing care facility personnel of one of their most difficult and energy-consuming tasks.
A new computer hardware prototyping board, designed in Crete, has been successfully tested. Sixty four copies of it are currently being built, to be subsequently interconnected to each other, in order to make a prototype of a future architecture -- a half-a-thousand-processor parallel
Flexible, transparent electronics are closer to reality with the creation of graphene-based electrodes. Researchers have created thin films that could revolutionize touch-screen displays, solar panels and LED lighting.
Researchers with the Hasegawa Group at the Tokyo Institute of Technology have created a robot that is capable of applying learned concepts to perform new tasks. Using a type of self-replicating neural technology they call the Self-Organizing Incremental Neural Network (SOINN), the team has released a video demonstrating the robot’s ability to understand it’s environment and to carry out instructions that it previously didn’t know how to do.
On Friday the 13th May 2011, after almost 13 hours of flight, André Borschberg lands in Brussels Airport for Solar Impulse's first international flight. It landed at 9:40PM UTC+2.
Engineers are developing bio-inspired integrated circuit technology which mimics the neuron structure and operation of the brain.
Trestles, a supercomputer launched earlier this year, is proving itself as a valuable resource for researchers across a wide range of disciplines, from astrophysics to molecular dynamics, who need access to computational resources with rapid turnaround.
An energy-harvesting shock absorber that can be installed in a vehicle’s suspension system to absorb the energy from bumps in the road, convert the energy into electricity, and improve fuel efficiency by 1-8% has recently won the R&D 100 award. Nicknamed the “Oscar of Invention,” the annual award is given out by R&D Magazine to recognize the top 100 innovative technologies introduced during the previous year. Previous winners have included the ATM (1973), liquid crystal display (1980), Nicoderm anti-smoking patch (1992), lab on a chip (1996), and HDTV (1998).
A custom-built, $2.5 million "split magnet" system with the potential to revolutionize scientific research in a variety of fields has made its debut at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory at Florida State University.
The largest digital camera ever built for a space mission has been painstakingly mosaicked together from 106 separate electronic detectors. The resulting "billion-pixel array" will serve as the super-sensitive
Researchers in Spain are working to create a robotic hand that can reproduce the abilities and movements of a human hand in order to achieve the optimal manipulation of objects.
Robots will soon be able to feel heat or gentle touching on their surfaces. Researchers in Germany are now producing small hexagonal plates which when joined together form a sensitive skin for "machines with brains." This will not only help robots to better navigate in their environments, it will also enable robot
