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 Engineers at The University of Texas at Austin have developed a jacket that harvests drinking water directly from the air. The technology could benefit anyone who spends a lot of time in areas without easy access to drinking water, from hobbyist hikers, campers and runners to agricultural workers, emergency responders and soldiers. The advance in fabric technology comes alongside a new benchmark for atmospheric water harvesting. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-specially-jacket-thin-air.html Energy & Green Tech Thu, 11 Jun 2026 16:40:01 EDT news700413128 Northwestern University scientists have developed a new liquid material that charges like a battery, transforms like a living organism and then resets itself in open air. Traditionally, harvesting energy, storing it and using it require separate materials or devices. The new platform merges all three functions into a single material, opening the door for adaptive, clean, renewable systems that don't require plastics or metals. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-based-material-solar-energy-power.html Energy & Green Tech Thu, 11 Jun 2026 16:20:01 EDT news700412758 In order to stabilize global warming at less than 1.5°C in the long term, there is a need not only for a drastic reduction in greenhouse gas emissions but also for technologies to remove and store hundreds of billions of tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere. This is also the underlying basis of the scenarios set out in the latest Assessment Report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-food-beads-boost-air-capture.html Energy & Green Tech Thu, 11 Jun 2026 14:00:15 EDT news700403101 Researchers in Japan have developed quantum multi-programming auto mode, a function that automatically runs quantum programs from different users in parallel. Launched on the Center for Quantum Information and Quantum Biology (QIQB) quantum computer cloud service at the University of Osaka, the system reduces idle qubit resources, improves throughput and may help ease congestion in quantum cloud computing. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-world-cloud-full-quantum-capacity.html Computer Sciences Thu, 11 Jun 2026 11:20:03 EDT news700395243 For remotely operated underwater vehicles, cloudy and turbulent waters are often a no-go. When vehicles settle on the seafloor or dig through a sand bed, they can kick up clouds of sediment that make it tough for onboard cameras to see through. Often, the only thing to do is wait until the marine dust settles before a vehicle can safely proceed. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-sonarcamera-murky.html Robotics Thu, 11 Jun 2026 10:40:07 EDT news700392181 Can pure water store electrical energy? A research team led by Dr. Vasily Artemov within the Cluster of Excellence "BlueMat—Water-Driven Materials" at Hamburg University of Technology has now shown that it can. By confining water within nanometer-sized channels in clay minerals, the researchers created a supercapacitor capable of efficiently storing and transporting electrical charge. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-nanometer-channels-enable-safer-energy.html Energy & Green Tech Tue, 09 Jun 2026 16:40:01 EDT news700240141 Transistors, small devices that can amplify or switch electrical signals, are central components of all modern computer chips and digital devices. There are two main types of transistors, known as n-type and p-type transistors. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-monolayer-wse-high-p-transistors.html Electronics & Semiconductors Tue, 09 Jun 2026 12:07:44 EDT news700225592 Although self-driving cars and sophisticated robots use advanced cameras, computer algorithms and artificial intelligence to perceive their surroundings, these artificial eyes struggle to remain reliable in mixed lighting conditions. A team of researchers, co-led by an engineer from Penn State, has proposed a solution that mimics the mechanics of the human eye to adapt from bright to dark light in seconds. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-artificial-eyes-human-sight-cars.html Engineering Tue, 09 Jun 2026 05:00:03 EDT news700126803 As artificial intelligence systems grow larger and more powerful, their energy demands are rising dramatically. But recent research from the University of Massachusetts Amherst published in Nature Communications suggests that advanced AI capabilities may be achievable with dramatically lower energy consumption. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-asynchronous-ai-energy-magnitude.html Hi Tech & Innovation Mon, 08 Jun 2026 17:40:07 EDT news700157701 Seoul National University researchers have developed an ultra-low-voltage electrochemical organic light-emitting transistor that can simultaneously perform signal processing, memory and light emission within a single semiconductor device. By introducing an ion-transport enhancer into the light-emitting polymer semiconductor channel, the team enabled electric-double-layer formation at the drain electrode interface, allowing efficient electron injection without relying on the high voltages or unstable n-type doping used in conventional approaches. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-transistor-memory-emission.html Electronics & Semiconductors Mon, 08 Jun 2026 17:00:05 EDT news700156561 Kirigami is a variation on the Japanese art of origami, or paper folding, in which cuts are used to create three-dimensional structures—for example, pop-up cards created from a sheet of paper. Kirigami also has applications in engineering design for creating materials with unique mechanical behaviors. However, most studies of kirigami materials have focused on structures with parallel and perpendicular cuts, limiting the applications of the final creations. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-inclined-kirigami-path-soft-robots.html Engineering Mon, 08 Jun 2026 15:20:03 EDT news700150091 Have you ever seen birds flying across the sky in shifting, mesmerizing patterns? Or ants using their own bodies to form a living bridge that other ants can walk across? https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-humanai-session-music-swarm-intelligence.html Hi Tech & Innovation Mon, 08 Jun 2026 13:00:03 EDT news700141383 A University of Manchester student has developed a powerful new ultra-lightweight tool that can turn dark, noisy footage into clear, detailed and usable images. Multinex, a new model for low-light image enhancement (LLIE), was created by Computer Science undergraduate Alexandru Brateanu during his third-year project, working with academic supervisors. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-multinex-ultra-lightweight-ai-advancing.html Hi Tech & Innovation Mon, 08 Jun 2026 10:00:01 EDT news700131489 The silicon that forms the foundation of most computer chips has fundamental limits to how much power it can manage, which constrains the speed and energy-efficiency of wireless communication systems. A promising solution is to build future wireless electronics out of transistors made from gallium nitride, an advanced material that can handle the speed and energy required for demanding wireless applications like 6G and satellite communications. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-ultrathin-diamond-layer-boosts-high.html Electronics & Semiconductors Mon, 08 Jun 2026 09:40:01 EDT news700129382 By borrowing a trick from tiny jumping spiders, Northwestern University engineers have developed an extremely energy-efficient 3D camera. Called SpiderCam, the new device senses depth the same way that jumping spiders judge distances before making a high-precision hop. To estimate depth, the system captures two images of the same scene with slightly different focus settings and measures subtle differences in blurriness between the two images. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-spiders-ultra-efficient-3d-camera.html Engineering Sun, 07 Jun 2026 16:50:01 EDT news699810781 A Yale-led research team has developed the first standalone device that produces the liquid fuel methanol using only sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide as the ingredients. The artificial "leaf," like its namesake in nature, is a chemistry marvel. It brings the scientific mimicry of photosynthesis—the process of converting sunlight and water into chemical energy—to a new level, converting sunlight to methanol 32 times more efficiently than the previous conversion record for artificial leaf technologies that generate alcohol products. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-standalone-leaf-liquid-fuel-sun.html Energy & Green Tech Thu, 04 Jun 2026 13:20:01 EDT news699797941 Like modern-day alchemists, metallurgists are constantly discovering and perfecting recipes for better alloys. A crucial step in those recipes is to get different metals to mix evenly. Unveiling a new utensil for the metallurgical kitchen, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have invented a way to whisk metal with a laser as it's 3D-printed, opening a new route for creating hard-to-make metal alloys. To verify their success, they also developed a way to watch changes in the metal using X-rays as they melted and solidified in a fraction of a second. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-looping-lasers-whisk-molten-metals.html Engineering Thu, 04 Jun 2026 12:20:07 EDT news699793802 In 2026, the hype for artificial intelligence agents is louder than ever before. These semi-autonomous programs can "think" and execute well-defined tasks in areas like customer service and software development, typically using language models (LMs). But fields like medical diagnosis and scientific discovery require them to inquire about a vast range of solutions in uncertain environments which LMs struggle with. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-battleship-ai-sharper-boosting.html Hi Tech & Innovation Thu, 04 Jun 2026 08:40:02 EDT news699780783 A pioneering technology capable of converting lignin, one of the world's most abundant organic compounds, into vanillin and biodegradable materials has been unveiled by the University of Alicante (UA), in collaboration with the Polytechnic University of Valencia (UPV). The study, published in Nature Communications, offers a sustainable method for repurposing plant waste and identifies viable alternatives to the fossil fuels that currently drive the chemical industry. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-tough-everyday-products-powered-advance.html Energy & Green Tech Wed, 03 Jun 2026 14:20:04 EDT news699711482 The ability to develop extremely thin semiconductors is key to advancing the fields of electronics and computing. But so far, there's been a trade-off between the quality of these semiconductors and the ability to make them at industrial scale. Prof. Cong Su and his research team have found a solution that combines the best aspects of two methods to make high-quality materials at scale. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-generation-extremely-thin-semiconductors.html Electronics & Semiconductors Wed, 03 Jun 2026 13:20:02 EDT news699710402 Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, have developed a new, entirely bio-based material from a somewhat unexpected ingredient: yeast. The material is 3D printed and customized for use in architectural and interior design elements that are currently made from non-renewable or fossil-based materials, such as plaster, plastic or synthetic textiles. These may be daylight modulating and sunlight protecting screens, room partitions or wall systems. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-yeast-based-materials-power-3d.html Engineering Wed, 03 Jun 2026 11:40:06 EDT news699705541 Researchers led by Takaki Hatsui at the RIKEN SPring-8 Center (RSC) in Japan and collaborators have developed a new approach to compressing X-ray imaging data in real time, reducing the size of data files by more than 8,000 times, while at the same time preserving the detailed X-ray intensity information required for quantitative analysis. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-real-ray-compression-size.html Hardware Wed, 03 Jun 2026 09:00:01 EDT news699695943 As semiconductor chips become increasingly thinner, the components inside chips are locked in a fierce race to achieve the ultimate ultra-thin state. However, this has presented a structural limitation: the thinner the device, the harder it is for electricity to flow. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-ultra-thin-semiconductors-limits-localized.html Electronics & Semiconductors Tue, 02 Jun 2026 13:00:09 EDT news699622374 EPFL researchers are developing AI models that could one day enable vision prosthetics able to restore meaningful, object-level sight for the blind. The research, from the NeuroAI Lab of Martin Schrimpf, part of EPFL's Schools of Computer and Communication Sciences and Life Sciences, uses AI models to predict exactly where to stimulate the brain to evoke images of faces and specific objects in the users instead of simply evoking spots of light. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-ai-vision-prosthetics-closer-reality.html Hi Tech & Innovation Tue, 02 Jun 2026 09:40:03 EDT news699610999 Augmented reality (AR) devices like smart glasses may soon be able to predict where a user will look and provide an enhanced interactive experience. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-3d-ar-devices-scenes-users.html Hi Tech & Innovation Mon, 01 Jun 2026 16:20:01 EDT news699549183 Metamaterials—the term may sound esoteric to the layman. In science and engineering, however, this is an interesting field of research that has developed at a highly dynamic pace, particularly since the 1990s. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-05-wafer-thin-silicon-millions-patterns.html Engineering Sun, 31 May 2026 09:00:03 EDT news699200635 Faculty in the Cockrell School of Engineering have developed a rare printer as part of a larger project to speed up production and lower costs of manufacturing semiconductors critical to modern electronics. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-05-tabletop-3d-printer-semiconductor-patterning.html Electronics & Semiconductors Sat, 30 May 2026 15:50:01 EDT news699115290 New research by Brown University computer scientists may be a key step in bringing volumetric video—video that can be viewed from virtually any perspective in a 3D scene—to computers and smart televisions. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-05-scientists-path-stream-3d-volumetric.html Computer Sciences Sat, 30 May 2026 09:00:01 EDT news699204074 Modern power systems are rapidly evolving into highly digitized smart grids, increasing their complexity at an unprecedented pace. Renewables, batteries, electric vehicles, power electronics, sensors and real-time control systems are all expanding rapidly, and this is making electricity grids significantly harder to simulate, optimize, secure and operate. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-05-quantum-energy-grid-optimization.html Energy & Green Tech Fri, 29 May 2026 12:40:07 EDT news699276182 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) Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) have demonstrated a method to reveal hidden underground structures using acoustic signals generated below ground. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-05-underground-acoustic-reveal-hidden-tunnels.html Engineering Fri, 29 May 2026 10:00:03 EDT news699267364