Hi Tech & Innovation news

Computer Sciences

Virtual markers help smartphone cameras reconstruct lifelike multi-person movement, from hugs to martial arts

For decades, the gold standard for capturing human movement and transferring these data into the digital world has required actors to wear suits with physical markers that cameras track in a specialized studio. While accurate, ...

Energy & Green Tech

Consumer camera modification offers low-cost way to assess solar cell performance

Commercial cameras can be powerful, producing images with exquisite detail that mimic real life. In the lab, specially designed cameras can photograph objects in the infrared region, invisible to the naked eye.

Hi Tech & Innovation

Chatbot gives teens first-hand experience of cybergrooming tactics without the risk of harm

Virginia Tech researchers are developing virtual tools to help teens protect themselves against cybergrooming. Using survey data from parents and teens and leveraging artificial intelligence, the research team created a chatbot ...

Engineering

MRI technique eliminates 'dead time' to capture rapidly fading signals, making scans more precise

A team of researchers at the University of Stuttgart has developed a new method that could make MRI even more precise by eliminating "dead time," a key limiting factor in the measurement process, thereby enabling the detection ...

Engineering

Cool, power, move: A printable textile that does it all

A new printable textile combines passive cooling with biomechanical energy harvesting to enable motion-controlled, adaptive thermal management. Led by researchers in The Grainger College of Engineering at the University of ...

Energy & Green Tech

New tool identifies raw materials used in buildings

Circular-economy thinking is becoming increasingly important in the construction sector. It helps reduce raw material consumption and emissions and can provide a well-thought-out reuse and recycling scheme to cut costs.

Computer Sciences

Bringing classical LDPC code design theory to quantum computers

Quantum error correction must detect and correct errors without directly reading the quantum information. Classical low-density parity check (LDPC) codes have a well-established design theory: by choosing how many checks ...

Engineering

Morphing 3D-printed structures from flat to curved—in space

Because it's costly and cumbersome to transport large structures such as satellite dishes into space, aerospace Ph.D. student Ivan Wu and his advisor, Jeff Baur, at The Grainger College of Engineering, University of Illinois ...

Hi Tech & Innovation

Scientists just built a 1-kilometer resolution digital twin of Earth

Weather forecasting is notoriously wonky—climate modeling even more so. But their slowly increasing ability to predict what the natural world will throw at us humans is largely thanks to two things—better models and increased ...

Hi Tech & Innovation

Big platforms chart gradual path to self-driving at Web Summit

Major Western ride-hailing platforms like Uber and Lyft sketched a gradual path toward introducing self-driving cars at this week's Web Summit in Lisbon, with infrastructure, developing regulation and passengers' preference ...

Engineering

Spray 3D concrete printing simulator boosts strength and design

Concrete 3D printing reduces both time and cost by eliminating traditional formwork, the temporary mold for casting. Yet most of today's systems rely on extrusion-based methods, which deposit material very close to a nozzle ...

Hi Tech & Innovation

Fractal-based metamaterial improves sound fields in car cabins

Car enthusiasts will pay hundreds of dollars for stereo systems that will improve the sound quality in their cars. However, the inherent directionality of speakers and complex shapes of car cabins can exacerbate sound disparities ...

Computer Sciences

3D worlds created from just a few phone photos

Existing 3D scene reconstructions require a cumbersome process of precisely measuring physical spaces with LiDAR or 3D scanners, or correcting thousands of photos along with camera pose information. A research team at KAIST ...

Engineering

'Self-driving' lab learns to grow materials on its own

When scientists make the thin metal films used in electronics, optics, and quantum technologies, they usually spend months tinkering with the temperature, composition and timing of the process, hoping to land on just the ...

Electronics & Semiconductors

Ultra-thin 3D display delivers wide-angle, highly-detailed images

Researchers have developed an ultra-thin 3D display with a wide viewing angle, clear image quality and vivid display depth. By overcoming tradeoffs that typically limit glasses-free 3D displays, the advance could open new ...

Electronics & Semiconductors

'Living metal' could bridge biological and electronic systems

Electronics have been transforming from rigid, lifeless systems into adaptive, living platforms capable of seamlessly interacting with biological environments. Researchers at Binghamton University are pioneering "living metal" ...