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Energy & Green Tech

Ink engineering approach boosts efficiency and cuts cost of quantum dot-based photovoltaics

Colloidal quantum dots (CQDs) are tiny semiconductor particles that are just a few nanometers in size, which are synthesized in a liquid solution (i.e., colloid). These single-crystal particles, created by breaking down bulk ...

Engineering

Perovskite solar modules show year-long outdoor durability

Perovskite photovoltaics (PV) are poised at the brink of commercialization, yet stability remains the foremost hurdle to overcome for widespread adoption. While extensive research has addressed the degradation of perovskite ...

Robotics

Giving quadcopter drones the ability to carry out precise flight maneuvers autonomously

A team of cyber-systems researchers, engineers, optical specialists and roboticists at Zhejiang University, in China, has developed a navigation system for quadcopter drones that gives them the ability to carry out precise ...

Electronics & Semiconductors

Hybrid thermoelectric material achieves high efficiency by decoupling heat and charge transport

Thermoelectric materials enable the direct conversion of heat into electrical energy. This makes them particularly attractive for the emerging Internet of Things. For example, for the autonomous energy supply of microsensors ...

Engineering

New wearable sweat sensor can track your hydration status

Dehydration can sneak up on you. Whether you're out jogging or sitting at a desk, it's easy to lose track of your fluid intake. But a new, tiny sweat sensor may soon solve this problem. Designed by UC Berkeley researchers, ...

Engineering

Wearable AI system helps blind people navigate

A wearable system designed to assist navigation for blind and partially sighted people is presented in a study published in Nature Machine Intelligence. This system uses artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms to survey the ...

Engineering

Physics reveals the optimal roof ratios for energy efficiency

While serving as a visiting professor in Benevento, outside Naples, Italy, Adrian Bejan noticed something about the local architecture: All the roofs looked the same. With what seemed like too-shallow peaks on smaller, older ...

Energy & Green Tech

Water-based battery offers 2,000-cycle stability

A team of chemical and biomolecular engineers, physicists and battery specialists affiliated with several institutions in the U.S. has developed a water-based battery that offers 2,000-cycle stability. In their paper published ...

Machine learning & AI

AI agents poised to take over travel industry

Dreaming of going on vacation but not sure where to go? Increasingly the answer—and how to get there, what to eat and where to stay—will come from advanced AI, rather than your old-school travel agent.

Hi Tech & Innovation

Photonic computing needs more nonlinearity: Acoustics can help

Neural networks are one typical structure on which artificial intelligence can be based. The term "neural" describes their learning ability, which to some extent mimics the functioning of neurons in our brains. To be able ...

Robotics

Robotics meets the culinary arts

RoboCake is ready. This edible robotic cake is the result of a collaboration between researchers from EPFL (the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne), the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT-Italian Institute ...

Engineering

Researchers unveil nearly invisible brain-computer interface

Georgia Tech researchers have developed an almost imperceptible microstructure brain sensor to be inserted into the minuscule spaces between hair follicles and slightly under the skin. The sensor offers high-fidelity signals ...

Energy & Green Tech

A fluid battery that can take any shape

Using electrodes in a fluid form, researchers at Linköping University have developed a battery that can take any shape. This soft and conformable battery can be integrated into future technology in a completely new way. ...

Consumer & Gadgets

Human-AI relationships pose ethical issues, psychologists say

It's becoming increasingly commonplace for people to develop intimate, long-term relationships with artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. At their extreme, people have "married" their AI companions in non-legally binding ...

Robotics

Tiny, soft robot flexes its potential as a lifesaver

A tiny, soft, flexible robot that can crawl through earthquake rubble to find trapped victims or travel inside the human body to deliver medicine may seem like science fiction, but an international team led by researchers ...

Hi Tech & Innovation

A new way to bring personal items to mixed reality

Think of your most prized belongings. In an increasingly virtual world, wouldn't it be great to save a copy of that precious item and all the memories it holds?

Energy & Green Tech

Strain 'trick' improves perovskite solar cells' efficiency

Researchers at EPFL have found a way to dramatically reduce energy loss and boost efficiency in perovskite solar cells by incorporating rubidium using lattice strain—a slight deformation in the atomic structure that helps ...

Business

Researchers teach LLMs to solve complex planning challenges

Imagine a coffee company trying to optimize its supply chain. The company sources beans from three suppliers, roasts them at two facilities into either dark or light coffee, and then ships the roasted coffee to three retail ...