Hi Tech & Innovation news

Hi Tech & Innovation

Inspired by how children learn, new AI framework learns to theorize the world from observations

A KAIST research team has developed a next-generation world model, an internal model an AI builds to understand and predict the world, that learns executable theories from observation alone.

Hi Tech & Innovation

AI-powered method enables instant ultrasound imaging with a single fixed sensor

IMDEA Materials Institute has developed an acoustic imaging method that overcomes some of the fundamental limitations of technologies like ultrasound imaging.

Consumer & Gadgets

Wearable patch vibrates when it detects environmental hazards

Researchers have created a wearable patch that can detect hazards in the environment—such as dangerous gases or heavy metals in water—and then notify wearers by vibrating against their skin. The researchers have also extended ...

Engineering

Scientists demonstrate dual-use laser system for power beaming and counter-UAS operations

U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) scientists successfully demonstrated a dual-use laser system capable of wirelessly transmitting power over long distances and rapidly transitioning to defensive missions, advancing expeditionary ...

Hi Tech & Innovation

For the birds: Parakeet co-designs its own perch

Shiso, a ring-necked parakeet, can't speak English, but she knows how to make her preferences known. She has screaming fights with the dogs and cats in her household, snorts for attention and food, and perches on her human ...

Energy & Green Tech

Elephant-inspired cement tiles cool buildings without electricity

Inspired by the cracked, water-trapping skin of elephants, Penn researchers have developed a low-cost cement tile that cools buildings by capturing and slowly evaporating water—turning a structural flaw into a climate solution.

Engineering

Mechanical engineers develop buttons that rise with light

No wires. No actuators. Shine light on the metal surface, and it rises like a button. KAIST researchers have developed a metal structure that changes shape using light, without any light-absorbing coating. This technology ...

Electronics & Semiconductors

Video: Electrical control of a metal-mediated DNA memory

DNA stores our genetic code. What if it could also be integrated with electronics to store and read other information? Scientists have been investigating how to store data in DNA, but retrieving the information remains a ...

Electronics & Semiconductors

New 3D device harnesses living brain cells for computing

Princeton researchers have combined brain cells and advanced electronics into a single 3D device that can be programmed to recognize patterns using computational techniques. Past attempts at using brain cells to do computation ...

Robotics

Tiny, knotted robots jump, fly and plant seeds

When a knot lets go, it doesn't just fall apart. It snaps. That simple observation led Penn Engineers to rethink what a knot can do. Instead of treating it as something that holds tension, they asked a different question: ...

Energy & Green Tech

Creating green materials with light could transform clean energy

Metal-organic frameworks, better known as MOFs, are among the most intensely studied materials for addressing major environmental challenges. Their highly ordered, ultra-porous architecture enables applications ranging from ...

Energy & Green Tech

Colored films enable patterns on photovoltaic modules

Scientists at the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE have succeeded in creating colored films with transparent cutouts, thereby producing realistic-looking designs on photovoltaic modules. In this way, roof ...

Electronics & Semiconductors

Lasers turn parchment paper into high-performance electronic circuits

What if the next generation of disposable electronics—the sensors in your food packaging, the diagnostic strips in a medical clinic, the environmental monitors scattered across a farm—were built not on silicon or plastic, ...