Hi Tech & Innovation news

Engineering

Bubbling up: Uncovering melt pool dynamics in metal manufacturing

Manually shaking or vibrating molten metal using ultrasonic waves helps reduce air bubbles, cracks and grain sizes in a finished metal part. Metal 3D printing researchers hypothesized that vibrations were the key to increasing ...

Electronics & Semiconductors

There's two sides to this semiconductor, and many simultaneous functions

Gallium nitride-based semiconductors have been a boon for high-frequency and power electronics. They've also revolutionized energy-efficient LED lighting. But no semiconductor wafer has been able to do both at the same time ...

Energy & Green Tech

Researchers create tiny nuclear-powered battery thousands of times more efficient than predecessors

A team of physicists and engineers affiliated with several institutions in China has developed an extremely small nuclear battery that they claim is up to 8,000 times more efficient than its predecessors. Their paper is published ...

Engineering

Scientists mimic cat eyes to create artificial eye that sees better in the dark, detects camouflaged objects

A team of engineers from the Center for Nanoparticle Research, Seoul National University, the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology and the Korea Institute of Science and Technology, all in Korea, has developed a new ...

Engineering

New device simplifies manipulation of 2D materials for twistronics

A discovery six years ago took the condensed-matter physics world by storm: Ultra-thin carbon stacked in two slightly askew layers became a superconductor, and changing the twist angle between layers could toggle their electrical ...

Hi Tech & Innovation

Japan plans driverless bullet trains

Shinkansen bullet trains could be whizzing around Japan without drivers from the mid 2030s, one of its main rail operators said, motivated in part by the country's demographic crisis.

Engineering

Revolutionizing 3D printing through microwave technology

In the rapidly evolving world of 3D printing, the pursuit of faster, more efficient and versatile production methods is never-ending. Traditional 3D printing techniques, while groundbreaking, are often time-consuming and ...

Energy & Green Tech

How solar farms can double as havens for Australia's wildlife

Australia's renewable energy transition has prompted the construction of dozens of large-scale solar farms. The boom helps reduce Australia's reliance on fossil fuels, but requires large areas of land to be converted to host ...

Engineering

Your next house could be built by a giant robot

Hugo and Erica Briones, like thousands of other homebuyers in North Texas, are waiting patiently for their new home to be built—but their home is different.

Software

Bot gives non-native speakers the floor in videoconferencing

Native speakers often dominate the discussion in multilingual online meetings, but adding an automated participant that periodically interrupts the conversation can help non-native speakers get a word in edgewise, according ...

Energy & Green Tech

New type of solar cell is being tested in space

Physics researchers at Lund University in Sweden recently succeeded in constructing small solar radiation-collecting antennas—nanowires—using three different materials that are a better match for the solar spectrum compared ...

Hardware

Rats with backpacks sniff for victims under rubble

Rats are commonly known as pests and spreaders of disease and many people's worst nightmare. Yet they are very clever creatures, and can be trained just as well as dogs. The Belgian aid organization APOPO trains African hamster ...

Energy & Green Tech

Harvesting big energy from small movement

Since the ancient Greeks, humankind has known that if you bring two things into contact, a small amount of electricity is created. One example is that we can rub a balloon with our hair and generate enough electricity to ...

Hi Tech & Innovation

ChatGPT bot passes US law school exam

A chatbot powered by reams of data from the internet has passed exams at a US law school after writing essays on topics ranging from constitutional law to taxation and torts.

Energy & Green Tech

Self-cooling tent runs using just water and sunshine

For many avid outdoorspeople, summertime and camping go hand in hand. But as climate change continues to drive summer temperatures higher, outdoor recreation could become less relaxing—and cooling technologies like fans ...

Hi Tech & Innovation

Amsterdam unveils its largest bike garage. It's underwater

Plagued by ever-shrinking space to park its hundreds of thousands of bicycles, Amsterdam opened Wednesday the first of its largest-ever bicycle parking complexes, built underwater in a pioneering engineering project.

Hi Tech & Innovation

A three-stage authentication system for the metaverse

In recent years, many computer scientists have been exploring the notion of metaverse, an online space in which users can access different virtual environments and immersive experiences, using VR and AR headsets. While navigating ...