Hardware news

Hardware

Next-generation memory material has the surprising property of shrinking when heated

Most materials we use in everyday life expand slightly when heated and return to their original size when cooled. In addition to such thermal properties, materials can also have electrical properties or magnetic properties, ...

Hardware

A rewritable DNA hard drive may help solve the growing data storage crisis

Around the world, scientists are exploring an unexpected solution to the growing data crisis: storing digital information in synthetic DNA. The idea is simple but powerful—DNA is one of the most compact, durable information ...

Hardware

Bio-inspired chip helps robots and self-driving cars react faster to movement

Robots and self-driving cars could soon benefit from a new kind of brain-inspired hardware that can allegedly detect movement and react faster than a human. A new study published in the journal Nature Communications details ...

Hardware

Ultrafast nanolasers mimic how the brain imagines unseen parts of the world

A new study has demonstrated how networks of spiking nanolasers could emulate a key principle of brain function: to imagine things that we cannot directly perceive by sampling from internal models of the world. The study, ...

Hardware

Amazon unveils new AI chip in battle against Nvidia

Amazon Web Services launched its in-house-built Trainium3 AI chip on Tuesday, marking a significant push to compete with Nvidia in the lucrative market for artificial intelligence computing power.

Hardware

A silicon image sensor that computes

As any driver knows, accidents can happen in the blink of an eye—so when it comes to the camera system in autonomous vehicles, processing time is critical. The time that it takes for the system to snap an image and deliver ...

Hardware

Faster fish tracking through the cloud

The fastest way to track a fish is to use the cloud, figuratively speaking. A new acoustic receiver, developed by researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and published in the IEEE Internet of Things Journal, ...

Hardware

Sensor research helps fight wildfires

As climate change leads to larger and more frequent wildfires, researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory are using sensors, drones and machine learning to both prevent fires and reduce their ...

Hardware

Graphene synapses advance brain-like computers

Computers that think more like human brains are inching closer to mainstream adoption. But many unanswered questions remain. Among the most pressing, what types of materials can serve as the best building blocks to unlock ...

Consumer & Gadgets

Wearable device uses sonar to reconstruct facial expressions

Cornell researchers have developed a wearable earphone device—or "earable"—that bounces sound off the cheeks and transforms the echoes into an avatar of a person's entire moving face, utilizing acoustic technology to ...

Hardware

Operating a 'smart home' by breath control

Researchers at Case Western Reserve University have created a simple prototype device that enables users to control "smart home" technology by changing their breathing patterns.

Hardware

Barrier-connecting prototype shows prowess in crash tests

Highway drivers passing through construction zones may not give second or even first thought to the barriers that separate their vehicles from the workers on the other side of them. But those barriers—usually precast, portable ...

Hardware

New hardware architecture provides an edge in AI computation

As applications of artificial intelligence spread, more computation has to occur—and more efficiently with lower energy consumption—on local devices instead of in geographically distant data centers in order to overcome ...