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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.

Robotics

Snapping rods let frog-like robot outrun rigid legs across six terrains

Roboticists at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering and the University of Michigan have shown that elastic rods can be bent and twisted to repeatedly snap between shapes, releasing built-up energy that enables small robots ...

Engineering

Ultrathin film blocks electromagnetic waves while masking infrared heat

A research team led by Dr. Taehoon Kim of the Composites & Convergence Materials Research Division at the Korea Institute of Materials Science (KIMS), collaborated with research teams led by Dr. Seon Joon Kim and Dr. Jaewoo ...

Technology news

Hardware

Toward physical AI: When the hardware becomes the neural network

Digital computing using silicon chips has transformed nearly every aspect of modern life and enabled the remarkable growth of artificial intelligence. But as AI models scale up, that growth comes with increasing demands for ...

Machine learning & AI

AI might be making women sound bad at work

When prompts to draft work emails and job applications contain language commonly used by women, AI chatbots, including ChatGPT, offer less sophisticated responses than they do to requests for office correspondence containing ...

Internet

Research reveals where the internet really slows down

Most people associate network performance with bandwidth, the amount of data that can be transferred per second. However, for many of today's digital services, latency is just as important.

Engineering

NASA's X-59 prepares for first supersonic flight

NASA's X-59 quiet supersonic research aircraft is preparing for some of its most significant flights yet. The X-plane is about to begin a new block of test flights that will include its first time flying faster than the speed ...

Engineering

Underground acoustic signals reveal hidden tunnels

For decades, engineers have searched for underground tunnels by sending signals from the surface downward—an approach that can miss what lies below. By reversing that approach, researchers at the Department of Energy's (DOE) ...

Robotics

A stair-climbing robot that catches itself when it falls

SUTD researchers have developed a reinforcement-learning-based safety system that teaches a stair-traversing service robot to brace itself mid-fall, addressing one of the biggest barriers to deploying autonomous robots on ...

Robotics

AI listens to insect body signals to guide cyborg cockroaches

Cyborg insects have long been studied as bio-hybrid systems that combine living organisms with small electronic devices. These systems may one day support tasks such as disaster search and rescue, environmental monitoring, ...