Robotic technology is close to reaching a new phase of mainstream consumer adoption. That’s the theory behind a new $25 million fund from Dmitry Grishin, the co-founder and CEO of Russia Internet giant Mail.Ru.
The fund will invest globally in areas such as home maintenance, healthcare, education, entertainment — basically any mass consumer market.
The robotics industry now is where the personal computing industry was in the… read more
Cosmo Wenman went to the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, took hundreds of pictures, documenting busts and reliefs from every accessible angle, and turned the photos into three-dimensional digital maps, using a free program called Autodesk 123D Catch.
Then he used the maps to print miniature plastic replicas on the $2,000 MakerBot 3-D printer in his home office.
And he… read more
Stanford Unversity engineers have produced the first full-wafer digital logic structures based on carbon nanotubes (CNTs).
Circuits based on CNTs could provide a ten-times improvement in energy efficiency over silicon, according to the engineers.
Background: dealing with chip energy efficiency with CNTs
Energy efficiency is the most significant challenge standing in the way of continued miniaturization of electronic systems, and miniaturization is the principal driver of the semiconductor… read more
A computer simulation program that enables children to interact with avatars to reduce social anxiety has been developed by the University of Central Florida Anxiety Disorders Clinic and the Atlanta-based company Virtually Better .
The simulation, designed for children ages 8 to 12, allows clinicians to play the roles of the avatars while the children sit at a computer in a different room and respond to situations they encounter routinely. The… read more
A Princeton University-led team of scientists has shown how electrons moving in certain solids can behave as though they are a thousand times more massive than free electrons, yet at the same time act as speedy superconductors.
The observation of these seemingly contradictory electron properties is critical to the understanding of how certain materials become superconducting, in which electrons can flow without resistance. Such materials… read more
Microsoft has applied for a patent for targeting ads to users based on their emotional state, using a Kinect type device, GeekWire reports.
Do you look happy? You’ll see ads for vacation packages and consumer electronics, but not weight-loss programs or self-help products. Do you look sad? You won’t see that over-the-top animated ad for children’s birthday parties at the local bowling alley. Feeling frustrated? It’s PC support ads for… read more
Some 200 members of the Human Microbiome Project (HMP) Consortium from nearly 80 universities and scientific institutions, organized by the National Institutes of Health, have mapped the normal microbial makeup of healthy humans, producing numerous insights and even a few surprises.
The report on on their five years of research was published Thusday June 14, 2012, in a series of coordinated scientific reports in Nature the PLoS.
Researchers… read more
Scientists of Kiel University have succeeded in selectively switching the magnetism of individual molecules or “spin-crossover complexes” on and off.
Using individual molecules instead of electronic or magnetic memory cells would revolutionize data storage technology, since molecular memories could be a thousand-fold smaller, the scientists suggest.
The interdisciplinary study is part of the Collaborative Research Centre 677 “Functions by Switching,” funded by the German… read more
BMW has come up with an innovative two-wheeler, the BMW i Pedelec (Pedal Electric Cycle) Concept, designed mainly for urban areas, BMW Blog reports.
It’s a compact bicycle fitted with an electric motor that tops up the rider’s muscle power with an extra dose of torque.
It has a range of 25 to 40 kilometers (16 to 25 miles). Under braking and when riding downhill, the hub motor… read more
Unlike their chimpanzee relatives, bonobos shun violent male dominance and instead forge bonds through food-sharing, play, and casual sex.
An 18-year-old female named Ulindi has now become the first bonobo (Pan paniscus) to have its genome sequenced. Scientists hope that the information gleaned will explain the stark behavioural differences between bonobos and common chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and help to identify the genetic changes that set humans apart from… read more
A genetically modified version of the rabies virus is helping scientists at Harvard create the first comprehensive list of inputs that connect directly to dopamine neurons, a research effort that could help lead to treatments for Parkinson’s disease and addiction.
Dopamine plays a major role in the brain system that is responsible for reward-driven learning.
The researchers, led by Naoshige Uchida, associate professor of molecular… read more
Microsoft is set to unveil a tablet next week that will mark its entry into rival Apple’s territory with its own branded product, The Wrap has learned.
The company has scheduled a secretive event for Monday at 3:30 p.m. June 18 in Los Angeles, where it will make a “major” announcement.
Rumors have surfaced that Microsoft’s new tablet will run on Windows RT, a version of… read more
With the help of human instructors, a robot has learned to talk like a human infant, learning the names of simple shapes and colors, reports Wired Science.
“Our work focuses on early stages analogous to some characteristics of a human child of about 6 to 14 months, the transition from babbling to first word forms,” wrote computer scientists led by Caroline Lyon of the University of Hertfordshire.… read more
Phil Zimmermann released PGP for free, but he’s planning to charge about $20 a month for his new Silent Circle encryption service.
Zimmermann’s new company, Silent Circle, plans to release a beta version of an iPhone and Android app in late July that encrypts phone calls and other communications. A final version is scheduled to follow in late September.… read more
University of Utah engineers have designed microscopic mechanical devices that withstand intense radiation and heat, so they can be used in circuits for robots and computers exposed to radiation in space, damaged nuclear power plants, or nuclear attack.
The researchers showed the devices kept working despite intense ionizing radiation and heat by dipping them for two hours into the core of the University of Utah’s… read more