Hi Tech & Innovation news

Consumer & Gadgets

Ultrasound and AI turn off-the-shelf smartwatch into full-body tracker without cameras

For the first time, researchers can track the movement of a person's entire body with ultrasonic sound waves, using just an off-the-shelf smartwatch and a lightweight artificial intelligence model—all while ensuring privacy ...

Electronics & Semiconductors

Engineers challenge 90-year limitation in digital audio sensing

What does a faint heartbeat have in common with a thunderous concert? Both present a challenge for digital technology: capturing the quietest details without losing the loudest sounds.

Robotics

Extra robotic thumb lets wearers complete two-handed tasks with one hand

To complete many everyday tasks and chores, humans typically use both of their hands. For instance, when opening a bottle, they use one hand to hold the bottle and the other to twist its cap. Researchers at the University ...

Consumer & Gadgets

Radar wristband turns your arm into a smartwatch trackpad

Researchers at North Carolina State University have developed technology that turns a smartwatch user's forearm into a trackpad, allowing the user to scroll, zoom, click on icons and so on. The system relies on a radar system ...

Robotics

China touts tech, AI cred at world Web Summit

China is flexing its technological muscles at the global Web Summit in Lisbon starting Tuesday, showcasing dancing robots and low-cost artificial intelligence models as Beijing weathers claims that it spied on the AI chip ...

Hi Tech & Innovation

Directional VR passwords improve recall with a sense of place

Researchers have demonstrated a new password authentication technique for use in virtual reality (VR) settings, which allows users to choose directions rather than numbers. The approach supports the same number of possible ...

Robotics

Advanced coating can alter a drone's radar signature

Drones have become a crucial element in modern security and defense. The ability to manipulate the signals reflected from drones—so that, for example, it is possible to fly close to a radar without being detected—is therefore ...

Energy & Green Tech

Engineers adapt laser physics trick to deliver heat on demand

When a process needs a burst of heat, a steady supply may not be enough. Storing thermal energy and delivering it quickly are challenges for applications such as sterilization, cleaning or starting up distillation systems. ...

Hi Tech & Innovation

AI helps find better recipes for 3D-printing titanium parts

Engineers can 3D-print high-performance titanium parts for aircraft, medical implants and advanced machinery, but finding the right printing settings can still require costly and time-consuming trial and error. A new study ...

Energy & Green Tech

Rechargeable battery prototype runs on vitamin B12

Vitamin B12 is essential for the body's proper functioning and is found in foods of animal origin. It is produced by certain bacteria that, in addition to being found in nature, are cultivated at industrial facilities for ...

Hi Tech & Innovation

Researchers teach football to AI models

The NFL has given Carnegie Mellon University researchers access to official film and on-field data to develop new technologies that can enhance the way coaches, players and fans annotate, analyze and understand games.

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" ...

Engineering

Newly developed knitting machine makes solid 3D objects

A new prototype of a knitting machine creates solid, knitted shapes, adding stitches in any direction—forward, backward and diagonal—so users can construct a wide variety of shapes and add stiffness to different parts of ...