https://techxplore.com/rss-feed/hi-tech-news/ en-us The latest news on hi-tech, innovation and new inventions technology, computer news and information The field of silicon photonics, which uses light rather than electricity to transmit and process data on semiconductor chips, has enabled optical systems to evolve from bulky setups to compact, advanced systems. Typically, however, these silicon-photonics chips are rigid and opaque. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-09-transparent-silicon-photonics-chips-advanced.html Electronics & Semiconductors Thu, 03 Sep 2026 15:40:07 EDT news707668561 Physicists from the University of Amsterdam have developed a method to print three-dimensional structures in ice. The researchers show how small pillars can be printed at an angle, making it possible to print arbitrary profiles in ice that don't need additional support. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-09-supercooled-enables-3d-ice.html Engineering Thu, 03 Sep 2026 09:00:04 EDT news707644383 Touchscreens and other touch-based controls, from smartphones and tablets to smart devices and wearable electronics, have become part of everyday life. However, many touch interfaces depend on batteries, external power, electrodes and wiring, which can increase costs and make them difficult to install in places where conventional electronics are impractical. Finding a simpler way to create touch-sensitive controls could therefore open new possibilities for wearable devices and the growing Internet of Things (IoT). https://techxplore.com/news/2026-09-laser-pvc-interface-tracks-finger.html Engineering Wed, 02 Sep 2026 13:40:10 EDT news707575081 Research led by RMIT University shows the 3D-printed titanium lattice—made up of hollow, interconnected struts filled with foam—not only floats but also withstands seawater exposure and is stronger than the stainless steel or high-density plastic currently used in jetties, buoys and floating sensors. The paper is published in the journal Advanced Materials. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-09-world-titanium.html Engineering Wed, 02 Sep 2026 12:00:09 EDT news707568422 Living organisms constantly adjust their behavior according to what is happening inside their bodies. Hunger can shift attention toward food, while cold can make finding warmth more urgent. These internal signals remain meaningful even when the surrounding environment changes completely. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-09-life-framework-autonomous-ai.html Hi Tech & Innovation Wed, 02 Sep 2026 10:40:04 EDT news707561913 There may soon be a new kind of artificial intelligence in town, one that uses a novel approach to thinking that could save massive amounts of computing power and money. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-09-kind-ai-cheaply-words.html Hi Tech & Innovation Tue, 01 Sep 2026 13:08:46 EDT news707486910 "Micromixer" might just sound like a fancy name for a tiny blender, but mixing liquids at the microliter scale is no simple task. Micromixers are essential components of microfluidic devices widely used across the pharmaceutical, life sciences, chemistry and materials engineering industries, where they rapidly and evenly combine tiny amounts of reagents. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-09-method-efficient-micromixers.html Engineering Tue, 01 Sep 2026 10:40:05 EDT news707477342 Two years ago, a new material was reported to have an unusually large lithium-ion conductivity. Now, Nagoya University researchers have uncovered why it works so well and attained its record-high room temperature conductivity among oxide-related solid electrolytes. The work has been published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-09-potential-material-safer-li-ion.html Energy & Green Tech Tue, 01 Sep 2026 10:20:03 EDT news707475361 The kind of technology that can deliver sound to a single listener—like something out of a spy film—may soon become a reality. Researchers at Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH) have developed a speaker system that can direct speech to a specific person. The work is published in the journal Nature Communications. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-08-ultrasound-based-speaker-music-disturbing.html Consumer & Gadgets Mon, 31 Aug 2026 12:00:08 EDT news707395202 The next generation of microelectronics relies on radical improvements in transistor switching performance to advance computing power. However, conventional semiconductor technology has hit a physical limit known as the "Boltzmann tyranny," which restricts the energy efficiency of traditional transistors and stalls progress in high-performance electronics. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-08-quantum-tunneling-field-effect-transistor.html Hardware Mon, 31 Aug 2026 11:00:11 EDT news707392742 3D printers that once could only produce rigid objects can now create products as soft and stretchable as rubber. A team of Korean researchers used AI to identify the optimal "recipe" for a material that can be printed into complex shapes while stretching to more than six times its original length. The material is expected to expand the range of applications for 3D printing, from robotic hands to form-fitting wearable devices and custom medical devices. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-08-soft-3d-robotic-gently-eggs.html Robotics Mon, 31 Aug 2026 09:00:08 EDT news707385292 Inflatable structures are all around us, from pool floaties and archways at the Tour de France to life-saving emergency resuscitators and vehicle airbags. As useful as these structures are, they are limited to only two stable states—inflated and deflated. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-08-crumples-inflatable-membranes-multiple-stable.html Engineering Sun, 30 Aug 2026 12:20:01 EDT news707133485 Arco Bast studies how neurons communicate. Earlier this year, the Janelia postdoc encountered a more mechanical version of the same problem: The components of his custom microscope could not easily communicate with one another. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-08-memory-ai-microscope-components-real.html Hi Tech & Innovation Fri, 28 Aug 2026 15:40:04 EDT news707138721 Inside every electronic device, the flow of electricity is controlled by a switch called a transistor. For decades, these switches were made from silicon. More recently, engineers have turned to a material called gallium nitride (GaN), which enables small, efficient devices like smartphone chargers. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-08-transistor-high-voltage-microchip-scale.html Electronics & Semiconductors Fri, 28 Aug 2026 10:40:03 EDT news707129462 While it may sound like science fiction, earbuds that read brain activity are already on sale. Wearable technology company Neurable claims that its headphones, equipped with electroencephalography (EEG) sensors, can track your fatigue and reduce burnout. At night, NextSense's Smartbuds pick up the electrical signals of your brain to chart your sleep. By day, the same EEG sensors help schedule demanding tasks for the hours when you are sharpest. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-08-brain-earbuds-prompting-urgent-children.html Consumer & Gadgets Fri, 28 Aug 2026 09:20:01 EDT news707126125 Metals, semiconductors and insulators are fundamental components of modern electronics. However, efforts to improve device performance have largely focused on semiconductor quality, while metal crystallinity has received far less attention. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-08-nanoscale-transistors-contact-resistance-stepwise.html Electronics & Semiconductors Thu, 27 Aug 2026 14:00:13 EDT news707049961 Combinatorial optimization problems are ubiquitous, underpinning decision-making in a wide range of fields, including logistics, transportation, communication networks, drug discovery and materials science. However, these problems are computationally expensive, especially for conventional computing systems. As a result, researchers are exploring new computing paradigms capable of solving such problems more efficiently. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-08-amoeba-method-enable-energy-efficient.html Hi Tech & Innovation Wed, 26 Aug 2026 11:40:07 EDT news706960921 Evaporation, the process by which water becomes vapor and disperses into the environment, draws heat from its surroundings. This heat, also known as atmospheric thermal energy, is abundant but diffuse, making it difficult to convert into electricity. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-08-vertical-microrods-boost-electricity-generation.html Energy & Green Tech Tue, 25 Aug 2026 08:20:02 EDT news706793081 Organic solar modules score points for their flexibility, transparency, and a particularly good environmental footprint. Wavelength-dependent transparency, in particular, is a major strength of organic photovoltaics. Researchers at the University of Freiburg and the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE have now succeeded in building 14.5 by 14.5- centimeter organic PV modules with an average transparency of 43.2% and an efficiency of up to 9.26%. To achieve this, they used a combination of sputtering and slot-die coating—both processes that are industrially proven and highly scalable to large module areas. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-08-scalable-semitransparent-pv-modules-windows.html Energy & Green Tech Mon, 24 Aug 2026 16:00:05 EDT news706803601 Despite significant advances in technology, knowing the atomic arrangement of metals in their microstructure—which defines their strength, deformability and other properties—is still tricky. In a new study, Yale researchers show that a mold about half the size of a fingernail could solve that problem and lead to the development of stronger, higher-performing materials for airplanes and other uses. Their results are published in Nature Communications. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-08-metals-small-square-billions-holes.html Engineering Mon, 24 Aug 2026 10:20:05 EDT news706784866 A new purple cooling fabric developed by Chinese and Australian researchers could help people stay cooler during scorching summer days without having to resort to wearing white. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-08-purple-fabric-sunlight-cooling-simulated.html Engineering Mon, 24 Aug 2026 10:00:07 EDT news706783202 Lithium-ion batteries (LiBs) power electric vehicles and most existing electronics, ranging from laptops to smartphones, tablets, smart appliances and wearable devices. These batteries charge and discharge by moving lithium ions between two electrodes, known as the anode and cathode. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-08-cartilage-lithium-battery-coating-cushions.html Energy & Green Tech Sat, 22 Aug 2026 11:40:06 EDT news706527054 When we watch a metal part being built by laser-based metal additive manufacturing (AM), we're only seeing part of the story. In one kind of metal AM process, a high-powered laser sweeps across a bed of metal powder, creating a tiny pool of molten material—often a few human hairs wide. In a fraction of a second, the metal powder beneath the moving laser spot heats up, melts, flows and solidifies into continuous metal. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-08-beneath-surface-metal-additive.html Engineering Fri, 21 Aug 2026 16:20:05 EDT news706528867 Researchers at the Advanced Science Research Center at the CUNY Graduate Center (CUNY ASRC) and Honeywell Aerospace have developed a new way to reduce the transfer of radiant heat between closely spaced bodies by using thin, nonmetallic coatings. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-08-nonmetallic-metasurfaces-block-radiant.html Engineering Fri, 21 Aug 2026 12:20:06 EDT news706531922 An electronic skin with a sensing system that can detect pressure and temperature could someday help amputees gain feeling in their prosthetics. The work, led by Washington State University researchers and published in the journal Cell Reports Physical Science, can sense at a scale 10 times finer than current commercial glove sensors. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-08-electronic-skin-temperature-pressure-personalized.html Engineering Thu, 20 Aug 2026 16:00:03 EDT news706459621 Researchers at the University of Utah's John and Marcia Price College of Engineering, in collaboration with researchers from The University of Texas at Austin, have demonstrated a new method of 3D printing that avoids the leaky seams that come with the layer-by-layer process. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-08-holographic-laser-3d-voids-shot.html Engineering Thu, 20 Aug 2026 12:40:01 EDT news706448341 As transistors inside microchips continue to shrink, the metal wiring that connects them is becoming a growing obstacle to faster, more energy-efficient chips. Narrower wires have greater electrical resistance, while smaller gaps between them increase interference between adjacent signals. These effects impede data transfer and raise energy consumption—an issue known as an interconnect bottleneck, which is especially acute in data-hungry artificial intelligence processors. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-08-nanometers-carbon-layers-future-chip.html Electronics & Semiconductors Thu, 20 Aug 2026 11:40:09 EDT news706444021 Anyone who's ever wrestled with a claw machine at an arcade can appreciate the difficulty of pulling and pushing joysticks in just the right way to get a mechanical arm to scoop up that one special toy. Coordinating the joysticks and connecting their movement to the claw's motion is a type of "mental mapping" that is not immediately intuitive. (And it's what arcade owners depend on to bring players back again and again.) https://techxplore.com/news/2026-08-miniature-digger-arm-significantly-slash.html Engineering Thu, 20 Aug 2026 10:20:11 EDT news706439163 MIT researchers have overcome a major challenge holding back the real-world deployment of microwave quantum technologies for advanced signal processing and secure communications. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-08-hybrid-magnetic-device-enables-quantum.html Electronics & Semiconductors Wed, 19 Aug 2026 13:22:50 EDT news706364544 New research published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests that when artificial intelligence (AI) agents interact in groups, their number is not merely a technical detail. It is a decisive factor in what the group settles on: populations built from the same AI model and doing the same task can reach opposite outcomes for no other reason than that one group is larger. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-08-ai-agent-populations.html Hi Tech & Innovation Wed, 19 Aug 2026 12:40:07 EDT news706361881