3D printing becomes a solid reality
For all the hype surrounding 3D printers and the potential for a new industrial revolution, their physical appearance is somewhat underwhelming. From the outside, the machines look more like large,...
View ArticleMicro-Muscles: Scientists Create Artificial Muscles With Super Strength, A...
Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Berkeley Lab have found a way to use a particular material called vanadium dioxide to create a micro-muscular breakthrough. The new “micro-muscles”...
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2013: The year of the drone
Although aerial drones been around in one form or another since World War I, it hasn’t really been until the last decade that they’ve really taken off, so to speak. Where they were once restricted to a...
View ArticleWall-Climbing, Gecko Robot Could Scuttle in Space
A wall-crawling robot inspired by the gecko has taken a small but important step towards a future in space. The tiny legged prototype could be the forerunner of automatons that crawl along the hulls of...
View ArticleA sense of touch makes robots more 'human'
A uniquely specialized robot is helping Henry Evans tuck himself in for the first time in ten years. Evans became quadriplegic and mute after suffering a stroke in 2003. He now has limited use of only...
View ArticleA Mind-Controlled Exoskeleton Will Kick Off the 2014 World Cup
It won't be a superstar football player who takes the first kick of 2014's Football World Cup in Brazil. Nope, instead, it will be a teenager, paralysed from the waist down, who will use the world's...
View ArticleBrainlike Computers, Learning From Experience
Photo: Kwabena Boahen holding a biologically inspired processor attached to a robotic arm in a laboratory at Stanford University. Computers have entered the age when they are able to learn from their...
View ArticleAugmented-reality contact lenses to be human-ready at CES
While Google works to bring a polished Glass device to market, wearables startup Innovega is taking head-mounted displays a step further: contact lenses that interact with full HD glasses. Anyone who...
View ArticleJohnny Depp Is Starring in a Movie About the Singularity
Ray Kurzweil is convinced the technological singularity is nigh. So is Johnny Depp's character, it seems, in a Hollywood flick that's due out in April. This may be the singularity's mainstream moment....
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When Will We Have Robots To Help With Household Chores?
Google has recently been in the news for its buying spree of robotics companies. Many people are excited about this and believe that this will greatly accelerate robotics technology development and...
View ArticleThe robots are coming – and their advance may prove just irresistible
This is the dawn of a new era. There will be a form of robot in every household in the next 20 to 30 years You are hungry and tired and in need of dinner. You relay this message via iPad to Herb. He...
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Coming soon...the 'Star Wars' phone that lets you talk to holograms of your...
When Princess Leia appeared before Luke Skywalker as a hologram in the 1977 blockbuster Star Wars, it was very much a work of science fiction. But fast-forward four decades and the hologram telephone...
View Article5 Medical Technologies Revolutionizing Healthcare
Robin Farmanfarmaian did not have an easy childhood. Misdiagnosed as a teenager with an autoimmune condition, she entered into what might best be described as medical nightmare: 41 hospitalizations and...
View ArticleThe Brain, in Exquisite Detail
ST. LOUIS — Deanna Barch talks fast, as if she doesn’t want to waste any time getting to the task at hand, which is substantial. She is one of the researchers here at Washington University working on...
View ArticleCES 2014: 3D food printers create sweets and chocolates
Two food-creating 3D printers that will launch later this year have been unveiled in Las Vegas. The machines make chocolate and sugar-based confectionary shaped in ways that would be difficult to...
View Article5 FUTURE FORECASTS THAT WILL CHANGE THE WORLD
When I tell people that I’m a technology futurist and a philosopher, the first thing they ask is “what’s a technology futurist?” I usually reply that I use current scientific research to imagine how we...
View ArticleTo 2014 and Beyond
The 10 most interesting things people said about the future in 2013. It’s the end of the year, which means it’s prediction season—when pundits put forth their perennial prognostications about all that...
View ArticleEverything You Know About Dying Is Wrong
Although death and taxes have long been known as the only two things you can truly count on, what if dying isn't exactly what you thought it to be? From multiple well-funded immortality projects to new...
View ArticleMotorola patents e-tattoo that can read your thoughts by listening to...
Imagine trying to patent the smartphone, or for that matter, the tattoo. Any company that could swing that, could probably also patent the fork and knife. Incredibly, a new application from...
View ArticleNASA’s Robot Astronaut Now Has Bendy, $15M Legs for Crawling Around the ISS
Having a skeleton crew aboard the International Space Station means forcing PhDs to pull double-duty as janitors, and sometimes to undertake dangerous space walks. NASA’s solution? Robonaut, or R2 as...
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