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Inkbit, a startup out of MIT, is working to bring all of the benefits of 3-D printing to a slew of products that have never been printed before — and it’s aiming to do so at volumes that would radically disrupt production processes in a variety of industries. Credit: Inkbit Objects made with 3-D printing…
This solid phase bacteria-powered biobattery could be a low-cost power source for the Internet of Disposable Things. Credit: Sean Choi In the future, small paper and plastic devices will be able to connect to the internet for a short duration, providing information on everything from healthcare to consumer products, before they are thrown away. Researchers…
When hurricanes strike, loss of electricity ranks as one of the top concerns for relief workers. New work, described in the Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy, looks to develop a strategy for how floating devices that harness the energy of ocean waves might be able to provide this much needed aid. A researcher at…
Instead of rooftops, the ocean could soon serve as a location for solar panels. Credit: Empa Paper, tin cans, glass—the world recycles as much as possible. So why not declare the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) a recycling product as well? Liquid fuels based on carbon will continue to play an important role in the…
The SensFoot device. Credit: Moschetti et al Researchers at the BioRobotics Institute of Scuola Superiore Sant”Anna, Co-Robotics srl and Sheffield Hallam University have recently proposed a new approach to improve interactions between humans and robots as they are walking together. Their paper, published in MDPI’s Robotics journal, proposes the use of wearable sensors as a…
Credit: CC0 Public Domain Before letters end up in your mailbox and packages land on your doorstep, many travel hundreds or thousands of miles in the back of a truck. Now, the United States Postal Service is testing what it would take to shuttle that cargo without a driver in the front seat. Recently, self-driving…
This new, simplified soft robot, powered by pressurized air, replaces multiple control systems with one input, reducing the number, weight and complexity of the components needed to power the device. Credit: Bertoldi Lab/Harvard SEAS A soft robot developed by researchers from the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) could pave…
This Tuesday, May 28, 2019, photo shows the Skai vehicle, developed by Alaka’i Technologies in Newbury Park, Calif. The transportation company is betting its hydrogen-powered electric flying vehicles will someday serve as taxis, cargo carriers and ambulances of the sky. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez) A transportation company is betting its sleek new hydrogen-powered electric flying…
Illustration of agents playing Capture the Flag, showing a range of behaviors. Credit: DeepMind Since the earliest days of virtual chess and solitaire, video games have been a playing field for developing artificial intelligence (AI). Each victory of machine against human has helped make algorithms smarter and more efficient. But in order to tackle real…
Diagram illustrating the experimental design for bimanual robot manipulation. A “bimanual action vocabulary” for robots was developed from an extensive analysis of human bimanual hand and arm motions (top panel labelled “formative study”). A robot programmed with a neural network and a bimanual action vocabulary was linked to a volunteer who attempted to control the…