cutting edge – Page 9

Alternative Transportation, Architecture, Automation, Automobiles, Breakthrough Thinking, City Planning, cutting edge, Elon Musk, Engineering, Future, Latest News

Elon Musk’s boring tunnels don’t look boring at all

May 2, 2017

Elon Musk’s new Boring Company tunnels look pretty, well, not boring.

The company on Friday published an animated concept video on YouTube that shows how tunnels underneath a city could work. In the video, a car drives onto a metal platform that then lowers itself underground. The platform, with the car on top of it, speeds along at 124 mph, while other platforms carrying cars do the same. When the car reaches its destination, the platform lifts it back to the earth’s surface.

Continue reading… “Elon Musk’s boring tunnels don’t look boring at all”

3D Printer, cutting edge, Engineering, Future, Science & Technology News

MIT’s Color-changing Robot ‘skin’ Was Inspired by the Golden Tortoise Beetle

April 7, 2017

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have created a 3D-printed robot “skin” capable of changing color according to the physical stimuli that it receives. The work was inspired by the so-called “goldbug,” a golden tortoise beetle, which changes color in the wild.

“I was googling online about two and a half years ago, looking for creatures that change their color, and found out about this beetle,” project leader, Subramanian Sundaram, an MIT graduate student in electrical engineering and computer science, told Digital Trends. “The golden tortoise beetle is incredibly interesting. One of the things it does is that, when it’s disturbed or scared, it drains out the fluid in its shell which is normally golden in color, but becomes a reddish-brown. I was interested by the idea that this beetle was able to respond to mechanical disturbances by changing the color and transparency of its outer shell. I thought we might be able to replicate that.”

Continue reading… “MIT’s Color-changing Robot ‘skin’ Was Inspired by the Golden Tortoise Beetle”

Alternative Transportation, cutting edge, Driverless vehicles, Engineering, Future, Hyperloop, Science & Technology News

Hyperloop tech company offers first look at futuristic travel pods

April 5, 2017

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”

Breakthrough Thinking, cutting edge, Engineering, Nanotechnology, Science & Technology News

Liquid metal nano printing set to revolutionize electronics

March 17, 2017

A new technique using liquid metals to create integrated circuits that are just atoms thick could lead to the next big advance for electronics.

The process opens the way for the production of large wafers around 1.5 nanometres in depth (a sheet of paper, by comparison, is 100,000nm thick).

Continue reading… “Liquid metal nano printing set to revolutionize electronics”

Breakthrough Thinking, Crazy Stuff, cutting edge, Future, Science & Technology News

Researchers invent paper that can be printed with light and reused 80 times

February 24, 2017

In an effort to fight the detrimental environmental impact of inkjet printing, researchers have invented a new type of “paper” that can be printed with light and re-written up to 80 times. Their invention employs the color-changing chemistry of nanoparticles, which can be applied via a thin coating to a variety of surfaces – including conventional paper.

Continue reading… “Researchers invent paper that can be printed with light and reused 80 times”

cutting edge, Future, Great New Product, Robotics, Robots, Science & Technology News

Vespa just unveiled a personal cargo robot

February 16, 2017

The Vespa brand’s owner, the Piaggio Group, doesn’t have a reputation for cutting edge tech (it only just started making an electric scooter). However, it’s making up for that in style. It’s establishing a robot-focused company, Piaggio Fast Forward, and has unveiled that company’s first product: meet Gita, a personal cargo robot.

Continue reading… “Vespa just unveiled a personal cargo robot”

Breakthrough Thinking, Crazy Stuff, cutting edge, Energy, Engineering, Future, Science & Technology News

We may finally have a way of mass producing graphene

February 15, 2017

Hailed as the future’s 2D miracle material, graphene has remarkable applications. Graphene is essentially a one-atom thick graphite layer, made from elemental carbon. Graphene’s unique properties are due to the arrangement of carbon atoms in it, which are densely packed and arranged following a two-dimensional hexagonal pattern called a benzene ring.

Continue reading… “We may finally have a way of mass producing graphene”

Analysis, Breakthrough Thinking, Crazy Stuff, cutting edge, Energy, Future, Latest News, New Discoveries, Science & Technology News

Scientists find a way to turn hydrogen into a metal

February 15, 2017

It’s not every day that scientists are able to create an entirely new substance, but Harvard researchers managed to do just that, and in the process created what could be a world-changing material with a bunch of different applications. It’s called atomic metallic hydrogen, and it’s exactly what it sounds like: hydrogen in the form of metal. If that sounds weird, it probably should, because it’s literally never existed on the planet before now.

Continue reading… “Scientists find a way to turn hydrogen into a metal”

3D Printer, Automobiles, Breakthrough Thinking, cutting edge, Engineering, Future, Latest News, Latest Trend, Science & Technology News

3D Printing startup raised $23 million to disrupt how cars are made

February 10, 2017

Divergent 3D, a Los Angeles-based startup that hopes to disrupt automotive manufacturing, has raised $23 million in a Series A funding round led by technology venture capital fund Horizons Ventures. The company will use the funding to help it commercialize its manufacturing platform, which uses 3D printing to produce the chassis of an automobile. The platform produces 3D printed joints, which it calls a Node, that can be connected with carbon fiber structural materials to build a strong and light chassis.

Continue reading… “3D Printing startup raised $23 million to disrupt how cars are made”

Breakthrough Thinking, Crazy Stuff, cutting edge, Drone, drones, Future

This drone doubles as an iPhone case

February 10, 2017

Pocket-sized drones like the Mavic Pro seem poised to be the photography of the future, but one company is taking things to the next level by slapping a tiny drone inside an iPhone case. It’s called the Selfly and while the little drone is not as powerful as its larger rivals, it packs a ton of incredible features that fit in your pocket and won’t hurt your wallet.

Continue reading… “This drone doubles as an iPhone case”

3D Printer, Architecture, Automobiles, cutting edge, Future, Latest News, Science & Technology News

3D Printing will change the way we make and design in 2017

February 9, 2017

Much of the focus in the technology world currently is on artificial intelligence, machine learning and big data – and how they will affect the way we use products and how machines operate. But developing just as quickly, although with slightly less hype, is 3D printing, or additive manufacturing (AM), which is going to have at least as big an impact on how we make things as AI et al. The process creates products by depositing layers of material, generally ground metal or plastic, to a template, lasering that material into place and repeating the process to build the required product – anything from replacement hips to jet engine parts.

Continue reading… “3D Printing will change the way we make and design in 2017”

Alternative Transportation, Automobiles, City Planning, Crazy Stuff, cutting edge, Driverless cars, Driverless vehicles, Electric Automobile, Electric Vehicles, Engineering, Future, Science & Technology News

Roads? Where we’re going, we don’t need roads.

February 7, 2017

Investment in autonomous vehicle technology entered overdrive in 2016, and 2017 is gearing up for more of the same. In the last six months of 2016, the first public self-driving taxi service hit Singapore roads, courtesy of NuTonomy, while Uber followed suit a month later in Pittsburgh. The question of self-driving cars becoming a reality on roads around the world is no longer an “if,” it’s a big fat “when.”

Continue reading… “Roads? Where we’re going, we don’t need roads.”