Hi Tech & Innovation news

Hi Tech & Innovation

AI agents debate more effectively when given personalities and the ability to interrupt

In a typical online meeting, humans don't always wait politely for their turn to speak. They interrupt to express strong agreement, stay silent when they are unsure, and let their personalities shape the flow of the discussion. ...

Hi Tech & Innovation

Virtual reality demonstrates the 'honey-pot effect' in pedestrian attention to public displays

Researchers at University of Tsukuba have used virtual reality (VR) to demonstrate that pedestrians' behaviors, such as stopping or turning their heads, can induce gaze following (the "honey-pot effect") among individuals ...

Energy & Green Tech

Fungi turn shredded mattress foam into lightweight building insulation

Swinburne researchers have turned old, unwanted mattresses into safe and sustainable building insulation materials using fungi. The team grew a common fungus together with shredded mattress foam to create a new material that ...

Hi Tech & Innovation

Musk vows to put data centers in space and run them on solar power but experts have their doubts

Elon Musk vowed this week to upend another industry just as he did with cars and rockets—and once again he's taking on long odds.

Engineering

Octopus-inspired 'smart skin' uses 4D printing to morph on cue

Despite the prevalence of synthetic materials across different industries and scientific fields, most are developed to serve a limited set of functions. To address this inflexibility, researchers at Penn State, led by Hongtao ...

Energy & Green Tech

Oxygen-modified graphene filters boost natural gas purification

As we shift toward more sustainable fuels, natural gas and biogas, which mainly contain methane (CH4), have become important sources of energy and raw materials for chemical production. However, these gases also contain impurities ...

Hi Tech & Innovation

New AI system fixes 3D printing defects in real time

Additive manufacturing has revolutionized manufacturing by enabling customized, cost-effective products with minimal waste. However, with the majority of 3D printers operating on open-loop systems, they are notoriously prone ...

Energy & Green Tech

Electric eel biology inspires powerful gel battery

Power sources used in devices found in or around biological tissue must be flexible and nontoxic, while still powerful enough to support demanding technologies such as medical devices or soft robotics. To achieve this balance, ...

Engineering

Turning 3D printing's biggest flaw into its smartest feature

Civil and systems engineers at Johns Hopkins University have turned a longstanding problem with 3D printers into a multifunctional feature: The team developed a new printing technique that solves the fundamental weakness ...

Telecom

Low-cost vortex beam generators could boost 5G/6G networks

Researchers have developed a 3D-printed device that generates twisting light beams with orbital angular momentum (OAM), a form of rotational energy that can carry more data than regular beams. The efficient, compact and low-cost ...

Computer Sciences

Coming soon—offline speech recognition on your phone

More than one in four people currently integrate speech recognition into their daily lives. A new algorithm developed by a University of Copenhagen researcher and his international colleagues makes it possible to interact ...

Electronics & Semiconductors

By tweaking materials, scientists create transistors that remember

A team of Johns Hopkins materials scientists made a surprising discovery that could change the way memory works in electronics. By tweaking the materials used in organic material-based logic switches called transistors, they ...

Electronics & Semiconductors

Battery-like computer memory keeps working above 1,000°F

Computer memory could one day withstand the blazing temperatures in fusion reactors, jet engines, geothermal wells and sweltering planets using a new solid-state memory device developed by a team of engineers led by the University ...

Energy & Green Tech

Burned rice hulls could help batteries store more charge

A closer inspection of ash from burned rice hulls, the hard outer layer of rice grains, revealed a form of carbon that could nearly double the energy density of typical lithium-ion or sodium-ion batteries.

Hi Tech & Innovation

Skin conductance offers a camera-free way to read emotions

Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University have used measurements of skin conductance over time to tell emotions apart. Volunteers were shown videos depicting fearful scenes, family bonding, and humor, while their skin ...