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It's a touchy issue for some - the matter of adoption by homosexual couples. Some argue against this type of adoption, while others claim that there's absolutely nothing wrong with it. Now, a new study conducted by University of Colorado Denver research found that children of same-sex parents experience 'no difference' in terms of social and behavioral outcomes to children of heterosexual couples.
Lexus, better known for its luxury cars, just released a teasing video unveiling what looks like a genuine hoverboard. But is it the real deal or some lame marketing stunt? I feel like the latter, while a possibility, would severely backfire for Lexus, a highly respectable brand. On the other hand, I guess the kid in me is just rooting for this whole thing to be real.
A group of UK teenages have invented a condom that changes colors and glows if you/he have/has an STD. Aptly named the S.T. EYE, the condom has a built-in chemical detector that detects infections such as chlamydia and syphilis, and lets you (and your partner) know.
With an already saturated market for bikes, companies are coming up with more and more creative options, but it’s becoming more and more difficult for a particular bike to stand out. The Mango Footloose however does so, not only because it’s an electronic bike and it folds (that’s not extremely uncommon nowadays), but because it […]
Don't you just hate it when you're looking for support for a service or app you bought, only to be greeted by some monosyllabic robot ? Ok, that can happen just as well when dealing with outsourced tech support, but at least you know you're talking to a real person. Well, that might change sooner than you might think. The singularity is getting closer by the moment. Just take a look at Google's new chatbot which according to the developers has moderate "natural language understanding". In other words, it can roll with the punches and continue the conversation by itself without following predefined question - answer. Of course, after a while you can still tell it's not human (fails Turing test), but that doesn't mean it isn't entertaining. Have a look at how it answers to "what's the purpose of life?".
A group of international researchers unveiled the world's thinnest light bulb. Remarkably it uses a carbon-based filament, just like Thomas Edison used in 1879 for the first truly commercially-viable incandescent bulb. Unlike Edison, however, the group used carbon in its pure form and ultimate size limit - one atom-thick graphene sheets. Remarkably, the tiny bulb emits light visible to the naked eye. Of course, these sort of designs aren't about setting milestones, though it's always interesting to see how low or high down the scale you can go with engineering. Mostly, graphene-based light sources might prove useful for optical communications where bits are transmitted via packets of photons, instead of electrons.
A recent study involving a Papua New Guinea tribe that practiced cannibalistic funeral customs sheds new light on prion-related conditions such as mad cow disease.
Daimler, the giant auto maker from Germany, is releasing its own version of a large-storage battery on the heel's of Tesla's heralded Powerwall. Branded under Mercedes-Benz, the battery pack is destined for both automobiles and home use. So far, a 2.5 kWh each version has been made public, with Deimler claiming it can be packaged in up to eight modules bringing the total capacity to 20kWh worth of energy - more than enough to power a typical home or even a small business.
A group at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology developed a sophisticated facial recognition software specially designed to identify birds for photos. Called the Merlin Bird Photo ID, the software works its magic by employing a combination of image recognition algorithms, deep learning techniques (so it learns from its mistakes and gets better in time) and human collaborators who upload photos and help the software by first identifying the key features that makes a species distinct. The team is now working at turning the software into an app, so that anyone with a smartphone can take photos of a lingering avian wonder then instantly come to know which species it is.
Paleontologists have discovered the wonderfully preserved fossil of a prehistoric bird which flew through the forests of the ancient supercontinent Gondwana, some 115 million years ago. The humming bird-sized bird had a spotted, ribbon shaped tail. The remains were discovered in a sedimentary hotspot in nowadays Brazil. It's the first of its kind discovered in South America and one of the oldest birds discovered from Gondwana, a supercontinent that once encompassed Africa, Antarctica, Australia, India and South America.
Microscopic swirls from gold might be the key to protect your cash and credit cards in the future, making identity theft virtually impossible. Researchers at Vanderbilt University developed the "Archimedes spirals" and report that they produce four times more blue light per unit volume than currently existing frequency amplifiers; they could be printed on currency, ID cards and pretty much everything that's important to prevent counterfeiting.
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison designed an innovate and sustainable solution to the global electronic waste problem: make the substrate of computer chips out of cellulose nanofibril (CNF), a biodegradable material from wood. The team collaborated with the the Madison-based U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Products Laboratory (FPL) to build their device.
It almost looks too futuristic to be true, but the prototype was already developed. London-based ecoLogicStudio has taken this innovative concept and made it a reality at the Milan 2015 Expo. Using only the Sun's energy, the Algae Folly is the perfect intersection of technology, design... and food.
A simple, cheap device could extend disposable battery life eight-fold; it suits all batteries from AAA to D and it works by keeping its voltage boosted to just above what most appliances consider ‘dead’. The technology was developed by US-based start-up, Batteroo and it’s called a ‘Batteriser’. It basically comprises of a very thin stainless steel sleeve (0.1 mm) that […]
Swiping your phone’s touchscreen might disappear just as quickly as it emerged, if Google have their way. When their new technology hits the shelves, you won’t even have to touch a screen ever again. Here’s why. It’s called Project Soli, and it uses radar waves to detect precise finger movements – or as they call […]
We've all seen them - the food pics are everywhere. Instagram has basically become a food porn haven, with everyone sharing their delicious lunch or snack. But those pics could actually yield valuable information, and tell you how many calories you're eating.
Tired of cooking your own food, hiring help or eating out? Tired of eating, for that matter? Just kidding. The last one might be for another cyberpunk story. Today, however, I present to you the first robotic chef in the world. For an one time (most likely very hefty) fee, you too could have your very own gourmet chef, at your disposal 24/7. Using its fine mechanical arms, the chef bot from London’s Moley Robotics could potentially cook any kind of food. For instance, at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Shanghai this past weekend the robot chef cooked and served crab bisque (soup). Right now this is the dish it knows how to make, but once it'll start shipping it should come complete with 2,000 recipes, according to the developers.
A couple of simple gadgets, like a smartphone or low-res camera, along with a couple of sensors were powered wirelessly using a simple Wi-Fi router you can find in any home. Moreover, not only were the gadgets remotely powered, the router also continued to transmit Wi-Fi signals unobstructed. This simple, but powerful demonstration gives to show how the so-called "Internet of Things" might grow to turn your home into an over-sized smart gadget.
Over the weekend, Amazon - a company that employs more than 50,000 people in its warehouses alone - organized a contest where engineering teams from all over the world were invited to present a robot that can fulfill simple warehouse duties. Though some of the bots were quite impressive, all of them failed miserably at some point, even at a task so simple as grabbing an item from a shelf and placing it in a tub. It's not that they couldn't do this, rather they were so slow and clumsy that any warehouse worker witnessing the display might think he's a superhero and his job is safer than the pope in the Vatican. Well, that may be true ... but who knows for how long. After all, any repetitive task can be automated, eventually.
At the International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) conference, a team from MIT, in collaboration wit the Technische Universitat in Germany, presented an incredible origami bot that can perform various complex motor tasks. Weighing only 0.3 grams, the bot can scuttle at about 4 cm/sec to crawl up an arm, carry twice its load, dig through a pile of foam, climb a ramp or push a tiny puck along a planned trajectory. At the end, the researchers demonstrate how the entire bot (apart from its magnet) can be dissolved in acetone. Later on, it's easy to imagine a similar origami bot traveling through your body where it performs various tasks like deliver a medical payload, diagnose for diseases or even perform surgery. It would be designed to be much smaller and with all its parts dissoalvable inside the human body after a while or when emerged in a certain bodily solution.
A team of researchers from the KTH Royal Institute of Technology and Stanford University has developed a method for making elastic, shock-resistant, high-capacity batteries from wood pulp.
As if Elon Musk's Hyperloop project wasn't attractive enough, it just got even hotter - Dirk Ahlborn, CEO of the company running the project announced that the super-fast transportation might actually be free for passengers, as they are thinking about other types of monetisation.
Artist Daniel Rozin has designed a surprising mirror-like device from… fur. Dubbed the PomPom Mirror, it relies on motion sensors and 928 faux fur pom poms manipulated by 464 motors to create a mirror reflection of the viewer in real-time. Sure, the mirror only works in black and white, but the effect is surprising and spectacular. This […]
It’s almost like a Disney movie: a roach helps a bird take off from its back in order to save their friends – except both the roach and the bird are robotic, and the recon mission was just a test conducted in a lab from the University of California, Berkeley. But this technology could save lives […]
It's more than just a nasty trick - scientists have actually 3D printed eggs to help them better understand bird behaviour. They were especially interested in bird perception and what particular characteristics make them identify real eggs from fake ones.
With the Hyperloop Transportation Technologies Inc. signing a deal to build the first test track in California, Elon Musk's "fifth mode of transport", the Hyperloop, took its first big step from the realm of geeky to the concrete. Work on building the track is set to begin next year.
Hong Kong PolyU has designed a new FES (functional electrical stimulation)-robot hybrid that promises to ease recovery of mobility in stroke victims.
There are millions and millions of photos under the public domain, and no doubt for some these can be nothing short of a gold mine. For instance, some scientists could find them most useful to compare things like glacial retreat or deforestation with what we're seeing today or with results generated by models. Shifting through such a catalog is no easy feat, though. Almost mockingly, Google not only shows that this isn't half as challenging as it may seem, but also manages to turn image processing and sorting code into spectacular works of art. Using millions of photos scrapped from social networks like Flickr or Picasa, Goggle engineers made an algorithm that stitches them together to make 10,000 timelapse videos. Some are so accurate that you wouldn't think for a moment each frame is actually a photo taken by some random, different person. Quite amazing, and a nice demonstration of what can be achieved in the future using other, much older data sets.
Using a novel deep learning algorithm, a team at UC Berkeley demonstrated a robot that learns on the fly and performs various tasks that weren't pre-programmed. It starts off shy and clumsy, but eventually gets the ahead of it. For instance, after it stomped a bit around its environment, when given a new task, but with no further instructions, the robot learned by itself to assemble LEGO bricks or twist caps onto pill bottles.
It’s striking how a company like Research in Motion (RIM) went under the radar so fast, considering it used to completely dominate the smartphone market only a couple of years ago. After all, Blackberry almost used to be synonymous with a smartphone, although competition wasn’t so fierce back then. Then the iPhone came out in […]
Meet Lily. I think Lily’s pretty awesome – after all, she’s the world’s first throw-and-shoot camera. All you have to do is throw it in the air, and it just starts following you and shooting. It’s waterproof, it’s compact, it can take both HD photos and videos, and it lands in your hand after flying up […]
A freak accident from his childhood in Iceland caused Gudmundur Olafsson's right ankle to collapse. After 28 years of living in pain and more than 50 surgical operations he decided to amputate his lower leg entirely. For years, he wore the Proprio Foot - a prosthetic motorized ankle developed by an Icelandic company called Ossur which can automatically adjust the angle of the foot using its built-in sensors. Now, Olafsson prosthesis got a major upgrade: his new Proprio is controlled subconsciously by electrical signals sent from his brain to special sensors directly embedded in his muscles, all via the nerves in the muscle itself. Then a decoded signal is sent to a control unit which directs all the fine moving parts that make up his new, robotic leg. All his intentions are translated seamlessly by the sensors and Olafsson, now 48, can walk almost entirely like a normal person. “The first time, to be honest, I started to cry," said Olafsson.
Don't make that face. It's not like you didn't see it coming, after all with each technological step forward porn has always shared the ride. Among the oldest surviving examples of erotic depictions are Paleolithic cave paintings and carvings. Prints became very popular in Europe from the middle of the fifteenth century, and because of their compact nature, were very suitable for erotic depictions that did not need to be permanently on display. An earthier eroticism is seen in a printing plate of 1475-1500 for an Allegory of Copulation where a young couple are having sex, with the woman's legs high in the air, at one end of a bench, while at the other end a huge penis, with legs and wings and a bell tied around the bottom of the glans, is climbing onto the bench. The oldest surviving permanent photograph of the image formed in a camera was created by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce in 1826, porn likely soon followed there after. Imagine what happened once film came along. Nevermind the internet. Though the Oculus Rift is still in beta, and only a handful of developers own one, virtual reality is certain to change how people enjoy porn.
For the first time, researchers have discovered how to control liquid metal inside antennas using voltage. This could add increase functionality to antennas, allowing them to perform more functions and have greater tuning flexibility. Researchers have been interested in liquid metal antennas for years now, but the main drawback was the fact that you could […]
With grace and steady robotic clippers, this high-end remote controlled surgical system was used to stitch a piece of skin back over the exposed flesh of a grape. Like a pro, the Da Vinci Surgical System - named after the famous renaissance genius who first inspired working robots - can be seen in this amazing video putting the final touch, tying a knot, then using its scissor-hand to cut the loose thread. Job done!
Astronauts onboard the ISS may soon get a new "toy" - a space laser cannon to blast off space debris that might threaten the space station. Even a tiny scratch or dent could cause massive problems, and with us putting more and more stuff in space, the risk of damage constantly increases too.
A mini-drone that fits in the palm of your hand could give the military an upper hand on the battlefield by providing key intelligence readings. Hundreds of these small, plastic drones could be dropped off a flight and left to scatter across the battlezone. Though they don't have any engines, these "Cicada" drones are equipped with sensors that help adjust the gliding pattern, directing the drone towards a dropzone with an accuracy within a couple of feet. These are hard to spot since they easily disguise as a bird from afar and once behind the lines can use their sensors and microphones to spy on enemy positions. These can also prove very useful for civilian missions, most notably for gathering meteorological data.
NASA is offering up to $2.25 million to anyone that can successfully design a habitat that can be 3D printed on Mars. The announcement is part of a broader attempt by NASA to outsource ideas and projects.
Researchers at UC Santa Barbara made a simple neural circuit comprised of 100 artificial synapses, which they used to classify three letters by their images, despite font changes and noise introduced into the image. The researchers claim the rudimentary, yet effective circuit processes the text much in the same way as the human brain does. In other words, like you're currently interpreting the text in this article. Even if you change the font, printscreen this article and splash it with an airbrush in MS Paint, you'll still be able to read at least portions of it, because the human brain is so great at scaling patterns and abstracting symbols. This kind of research will hopefully usher in a new age of more refined, energy efficient computing.
Printing your own mechanical parts or toys is really easy, not to mention fun, using a 3-D printer. But things get a bit trickier when you want to print the kind of parts that go into a car or airplane. Metal is a lot more complex to work with inside a 3D printer than polymers like ABS - the kind of film roles that get melted layer by layer to form a part of your liking once it cools down. Engineers at General Electric just demonstrated, however, that in practice it's not that complicated to print parts out of metal alloys as it sounds. The team used additive technology to build a fully functional jet engine, then test powered it to 33,000 RPMs. The company is already using 3-D printed fuel nozzles in its next-generation aircraft engines, slated to role out in 2016.
Mobile technology is revolutionizing nearly everything consumers do. From browsing price comparisons in the store to checking movie times for nearby theaters while you’re still on the road, it’s possible to streamline virtually every activity using your smartphone. Dining is one of the most recent additions to the world of mobile conveniences.
Next Thing Co, a fledgling company started by three budding hardware enthusiasts, just released a KickStarter campaign in which they promise to release a computer worth nine USD. The computer, called CHIP, can do everything 90% of all people usually use computers for: office apps, surf the web and play games. The team hoped to raise $50,000 to supplement their own budget and start rolling orders at an assembly line in China. Right now, $1,040,006 were donated as I'm writing this and the numbers are swelling with 24 days still to go. Are we finally seeing the fruits of liberalizing computing and economics of scale?
Climate models and environmental monitoring missions are ever more reliant on autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) to scour the ocean depths and bring back valuable data like temperature, salinity, carbon levels and so on. Researchers at MIT have now upgraded the way AUVs perform their missions by adding an extra dimension to their autonomy. They demonstrate how a pack of AUVs, directed by a "captain" drone, is able to navigate obstacles and retrieve data with minimal intervention. This dramatically enhances performance and might revolutionize the way scientists study the oceans.
It generates as much oxygen as 400,000 square feet of natural woodland, it looks nice, and it can produce lots of biomass – the Urban Algae Canopy is a concept we should probably pay more attention to. It combines biology, modern architecture and electronics, creating a structure that not only generates energy, but also adapts and […]
Even the best chess players are no match for computers these days, but computers are still struggling when it comes to games that have a random or unknown component. In games like Bridge or Poker, humans still hold the crown. Scientists from the Carnegie Mellon University tried to change that, by designing Claudico - a computer program built to defeat humans. But Claudico lost, badly.
A few years ago, NASA unveiled one of the most interesting technologies I've seen recently - a portable radar unit based on technology used to detect alien life on other planets. Now, the first time this technology has been used in the field, it managed to find 4 people buried under meters of rubble, by detecting their heartbeat.
Scientists have managed to use a simple smartphone to test for blood parasites; the device and app was successful in small trials in Cameroon.
One of the most famous NSA whistleblowers (or the 'original NSA whistleblower'), William Binney, said the agency is collecting stupendous amounts of data - so much that it's actually hampering intelligence operations.
Physicists at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory used 3D printed materials and a simple glass bead to create a magnifying system that works with your smartphone's or tablet's built-in camera to magnify matter 100x, 350x or 1,000x. The whole system costs only 1$ to manufacture.
About a month ago, we were telling you about a new battery for houses Tesla was working on, that might revolutionize home energy and bring forth massive change in renewable energy - now, the official announcement is out. Homeowners will be able to get the Powerwall battery, in 7 or 10 kilowatt modules, which will cost $3000 and $3500 respectively.
