Scientists at the University of Glasgow have invented a robot skin that surpasses human flesh.
Professor Ravinder Dahiya and his team created a silicone and graphine skin which provides haptic feedback to the user. The thin layer of graphine acts as a sensor, making the electronic skin (e-skin) very sensitive to touch. It’s also flexible and cheap to manufacture.
Continue reading… “Scientists just made electronic skin that’s better than human skin”
The resurgence of virtual reality is still in its infancy, and while we do have very good VR headsets such as the Oculus Rift and PlayStation VR, in other areas the tech is still severely lacking. Take interaction, for example, it’s very difficult to convey touching something in the virtual world with physical feedback. But what if you could interact with real world objects that appear in the virtual world?
Disney Research decided to carry out just such an experiment by asking the question: can you catch a real ball in virtual reality? The good news is, yes you can, but there’s a number of prerequisites to achieving such a simple task.
Continue reading… “Disney Researchers Catch a Real Ball in Virtual Reality”
Thirty-four years ago, Chuck Hull developed stereolithography, the grandfather of additive manufacturing systems that rests under the now broad umbrella of 3D printing. In the intervening years, thousands of people have poured their creativity and ingenuity into 3D-printed body parts, bridges, and even a car.
But Ron Arad, a London based Israeli Industrial designer, is taking on a seemingly more banal challenge. He’s 3D printing a book.
Continue reading… “3D printing is tackling what may be its biggest challenge yet: the humble book”
Researchers face a fundamental challenge as they seek to scale up human tissue regeneration from small lab samples to full-size tissues, bones, even whole organs to implant in people to treat disease or traumatic injuries: how to establish a vascular system that delivers blood deep into the developing tissue.
Current bioengineering techniques, including 3-D printing, can’t fabricate the branching network of blood vessels down to the capillary scale that are required to deliver the oxygen, nutrients and essential molecules required for proper tissue growth. To solve this problem, a multidisciplinary research team at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Arkansas State University-Jonesboro have successfully turned to plants. They report their initial findings in the paper “Crossing kingdoms: Using decelluralized plants as perfusable tissue engineering scaffolds” published online in advance of the May 2017 issue of the journal Biomaterials.
Continue reading… “Researchers grow heart tissue on spinach leaves”
Last month, Motor Trend managed to make a 10.5-second quarter mile run in a stock Tesla Model S P100D with the new ‘Ludicrous+’ software upgrade, but it has not been replicable in the real world, aka uncorrected time on the drag strip.
Before that, the best time recorded on the dragstrip since ‘Ludicrous+’ was 10.726 seconds, which was good enough to be a record for any stock production electric car or any stock 4-door sedan. There’s apparently room for improvements and the options on the vehicles can make a good difference since the record has now been broken with a 10.723-second run.
Continue reading… “Tesla Model S P100D sets new real-world quarter-mile record: 10.723 seconds”
When you perform a Google search for every day queries, you don’t typically expect systemic racism to rear its ugly head. Yet, if you’re a woman searching for a hairstyle, that’s exactly what you might find.
A simple Google image search for ‘women’s professional hairstyles’ returns the following:
Continue reading… “Artificial intelligence is quickly becoming as biased as we are”
Building a new 700mph transport system sounds pretty tricky, so one Hyperloop company has decided to kick things off by building the passenger pods first.
Hyperloop is a proposed plan to transport people or cargo between cities at near-supersonic speed in vacuum-sealed pods.
The technology is just a pipedream at the moment, with rival companies Hyperloop One and Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT)at the forefront of developments.
Continue reading… “Hyperloop tech company offers first look at futuristic travel pods”
Thousands of mall-based stores are shutting down in what’s fast becoming one of the biggest waves of retail closures in decades.
More than 3,500 stores are expected to close in the next couple of months.
Department stores like JCPenney, Macy’s, Sears, and Kmart are among the companies shutting down stores, along with middle-of-the-mall chains like Crocs, BCBG, Abercrombie & Fitch, and Guess.
Continue reading… “The retail apocalypse has officially descended on America”
If you’re frustrated with slow wi-fi, you might be one of the many people eagerly awaiting the commercialisation of li-fi (or light-based wi-fi), which promises to be up to 100 times faster than the connections we use today.
Most li-fi systems rely on transmitting data via LED bulbs, which means there are some limitations to how easily the technology could be applied to systems outside the lab. But researchers have come up with a new type of li-fi that uses infrared light instead, and it’s reportedly already cracked 40 gigabits per second (gbps) in early testing.
We all know that nature is a powerful force. I was reminded just how powerful after last week’s wind storm, when the next day I found shingles from my roof littered on the lawn. I’ve been driving around the last week, and observing all the damage that storm caused, getting quotes from roofers, dealing with insurance, and realizing that I was not alone. One contractor said that they received 300 hundred calls in one day. All that damage caused by one storm. My roof looks like it needs to be replaced, and by the look of the other roofs in my neighborhood, I am not alone. Which of course left me day-dreaming about upgrading to include the new Solar Panels being produced by Tesla and Panasonic in Buffalo.
Continue reading… “Tesla’s new solar roof will cost less and keep your house off the Grid all day”
DJI Technology Inc, the largest civilian drone maker, is claiming in a new study that “59 lives have been saved by civilian drones in 18 different incidents, with one life a week being saved by drones on average.”
The study was published on March 14, 2017, and is based on reports in the news. The majority of the rescues have occurred in USA and China, although instances have occurred in Canada and Turkey as well.
One third were saved by civilians using their hobbyist drones and not by emergency personnel, showing their far-reaching abilities. 31 lives were saved during floods, as drones spotted missing people and delivered rescue ropes and life jackets. 19 missing people were found on land, on terrain ranging from swamps to mountains to snow banks. 9 more people were rescued off beaches or in boats.
Continue reading… “Drones Are Saving One Life Per Week, DJI Study Finds”
If you want to help the world’s poorest, help them to farm. So says Bill Gates, and it makes sense. More than three-quarters of the poorest live in rural areas and most are smallholder farmers working less than two acres. They often lack the seeds, machinery, livestock, and finance they need to grow, so they struggle to emerge from poverty.
Two young entrepreneurs from Kenya have an idea to help: FarmDrive develops credit histories for farmers, so they become more attractive to financial institutions offering loans. So far, they’ve signed up more than 3,000 farmers on their mobile-based platform. In 2016, working with a financial partner, they helped disburse about $130,000 in loans to 400 farmers.
Continue reading… “This Kenyan Startup Uses Mobile Phones To Build Credit For Farmers”
By delving into the futuring techniques of Futurist Thomas Frey, you’ll embark on an enlightening journey.
Learn More about this exciting program.