Engineering – Page 20

Alternative Transportation, China, Elon Musk, Engineering, Transportation

Chinese city signs up for hyperloop project

August 1, 2018

The city of Tongren, in the southwestern Chinese province of Guizhou, has signed an agreement with Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HyperloopTT) to develop the futuristic tube-travel system envisaged by Elon Musk.

HyperloopTT and Tongren Transportation & Tourism Investment Group announced the agreement yesterday, saying HyperloopTT would provide technology, engineering expertise and equipment, while Tongren will be responsible for certification, the regulatory framework and construction of the system.

Continue reading… “Chinese city signs up for hyperloop project”

Breakthrough Thinking, cutting edge, Engineering

Making opaque materials totally transparent

July 28, 2018

Most naturally occurring materials have a disordered atomic structure that interferes with the propagation of both sound and electromagnetic waves. When the waves come into contact with these materials, they bounce around and disperse – and their energy dissipates according to a highly complex interference pattern, diminishing in intensity. That means it’s virtually impossible to transmit data or energy intact across wave-scattering media and fully leverage the potential of wave technology.

For an example, you need look no further than your smartphone – the geolocation function works less well inside buildings where radiofrequency waves scatter in all directions. Other potential applications include biomedical imaging and geological surveying, where it’s important to be able to send waves across highly disordered media.

Continue reading… “Making opaque materials totally transparent”

Engineering, Future, new technology, Robotics

MIT researchers create an aerosol spray loaded with nanobots

July 27, 2018

AEROSOLS FOR GOOD. You may have sworn off aerosol sprays in the ’90s when everyone was talking about the hole in the ozone layer, but a team of researchers from MIT has found a use for aerosols that could be good for both the environment and our health. This spray contains nanobots, tiny sensors with the potential to do everything, from detecting dangerous leaks in pipelines, to diagnosing health issues. They published their research in Nature Nanotechnology on Monday.

NANO-SCALE SENSORS. Each sensor in the aerosol spray contains two parts. The first is a colloid, an extremely tiny insoluble particle or molecule. Colloids are so small, in fact, they can remain suspended in a liquid or the air indefinitely — the force of particles colliding around them is stronger than the force of gravity attempting to pull them down.

Continue reading… “MIT researchers create an aerosol spray loaded with nanobots”

DARPA, Engineering, new technology, Robots

DARPA’s insect-sized SHRIMP robots could aid disaster relief

July 22, 2018

Meet the tiny, versatile robots built to navigate high-risk environments.

DARPA’s efforts to propel military technology forward often manifest in a diverse fashion, spanning everything from drone submarine development to a biostasis program that aims to buy more time to rescue soldiers on the battlefield. The SHRIMP program, short for SHort-Range Independent Microrobotic Platforms, is another potentially life-saving initiative that is being designed to navigate through hazardous natural disaster zones.

Continue reading… “DARPA’s insect-sized SHRIMP robots could aid disaster relief”

Big Problems, Ecological Products, Engineering, Wind Power

Wind-powered Water Seer pulls 11 gallons of clean drinking water from thin air

July 21, 2018

A new device that relies on simple condensation to collect clean water from the atmosphere promises to provide up to 11 gallons of safe drinking water without an external power source, greenhouse gas emissions, or adverse environmental impacts. What’s more, the innovative Water Seer collection device could potentially run forever, gifting generations of people with access to ‘liquid gold’ in areas of the world where a harsh climate or lack of infrastructure make access to clean drinking water a major problem. Water Seer is powered by a simple wind turbine, and the device could easily be the first step toward a sustainable, enduring solution to water shortages around the world.

Continue reading… “Wind-powered Water Seer pulls 11 gallons of clean drinking water from thin air”

Alternative Transportation, Aviation, Breakthrough Thinking, Engineering, Science & Technology News, Transportation

Flying trains could be coming your way

July 15, 2018

French firm has designed an airplane with removable wings.

It’s presenting plane to Boeing, Asia to cut Europe dependence.

It sounds like something Q, the tech guy in James Bond movies, would create: A plane that lands on a runway, shrugs its wings off, turns into a train and rolls on to rails to drop you off at your local station.

Continue reading… “Flying trains could be coming your way”

Artificial Intelligence, cutting edge, Engineering, IBM, new technology

The AI revolution has spawned a new chips arms race

July 13, 2018

There’s no x86 in the AI chip market yet—”People see a gold rush; there’s no doubt.”

A lot has changed since 1918. But whether it’s a literal (like the City of London School athletics’ U12 event) or figurative (AI chip development) race, participants still very much want to win.

For years, the semiconductor world seemed to have settled into a quiet balance: Intel vanquished virtually all of the RISC processors in the server world, save IBM’s POWER line. Elsewhere AMD had self-destructed, making it pretty much an x86 world. And Nvidia, a late starter in the GPU space, previously mowed down all of it many competitors in the 1990s. Suddenly only ATI, now a part of AMD, remained. It boasted just half of Nvidia’s prior market share.

Continue reading… “The AI revolution has spawned a new chips arms race”

Drone, drones, Engineering, Inventions, Science & Technology News

This flying ‘dragon’ drone can change shape in midair

July 11, 2018

Researchers at the University of Tokyo’s JSK Lab have developed a “dragon drone,” made up of several small drones and capable of transforming on the fly, as reported by IEEE. Not only can the drone change into different shapes, like a square or curved line, it can also autonomously decide what shape it needs to change into depending on the space it’s required to navigate.

The name of the drone is actually an acronym, standing for “Dual-rotor embedded multilink Robot with the Ability of multi-deGree-of-freedom aerial transformatiON,” or DRAGON for short. Its design was modeled off of traditional dragon kites, where the tail is made up of a series of smaller, interlinked kites.

Continue reading… “This flying ‘dragon’ drone can change shape in midair”

3D Printer, Big Problems, Engineering, Green Friendly, Home Technology

Can 3D printed homes solve the urban housing crisis?

July 4, 2018

Building houses is massively wasteful. During the construction process, building projects accumulate giant piles of garbage from off-cuts of lumber and drywall to pallets that carry materials and the packaging they come in. And once operating, homes consume huge amounts of energy.

“It turns out if you triage the world and you ask where are all these ecological health issues coming from, you get a surprising answer,” Jason Ballard, co-founder and president of ICON, says. “It’s not the gas guzzling SUVs and private jets; it’s buildings, especially homes. They are the number one consumer of energy by sector and the number two user of water.”

Continue reading… “Can 3D printed homes solve the urban housing crisis?”

Engineering, Military, mobile technology, Wearables

Power-multiplying exoskeletons are slimming down for use on the battlefield

June 30, 2018

The technology has been long-anticipated by military commanders.

With exoskeletons, soldiers don’t have to consume as much oxygen to perform a given task. Taking that edge off has associated benefits, including cutting the risk of bone and muscle injuries.

Continue reading… “Power-multiplying exoskeletons are slimming down for use on the battlefield”

cutting edge, Engineering, Inventions, Science & Technology News

This beautiful golden chamber contains water so pure it can dissolve metal

June 30, 2018

It can detect dying stars.

Hidden 1,000 metres (3,300 feet) under Mount Ikeno in Japan is a place that looks like a supervillain’s dream.

Super-Kamiokande (or “Super-K” as it’s sometimes referred to) is a neutrino detector. Neutrinos are sub-atomic particles which travel through space and pass through solid matter as though it were air.

Studying these particles is helping scientists detect dying stars and learn more about the universe. Business Insider spoke to three scientists about how the giant gold chamber works – and the dangers of conducting experiments inside it.

Continue reading… “This beautiful golden chamber contains water so pure it can dissolve metal”