Two years ago a cheetah-inspired robot “ran” at 28.3 mph, faster than Usain Bolt. A new rival model can only manage 10 mph, but does so without any external power cables. Both Cheetah model are funded by the American military’s gadget department DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) but are produced by different firms. In […]
We already had “cloud” printing that lets people print documents from thousands of miles away. Now NASA has sent a print out of this world — and with an extra dimension. After astronaut Barry “Butch”Wilmore installed a 3D printer in the International Space Station, NASA ground crew sent remote commands for two test calibration prints, […]
A company called Double Robotics makes telepresence robots, including models that display the user’s face so that they can “be” in a location remotely. To show off the technology, they made one such robot available for anyone to control online, making sure to keep it in a room with a closed door. That is until […]
A Georgia Institute of Technology professor has proposed an alternative to the Turing Test in assessing artificial intelligence. It would be based more on creativity than communication. The idea of the test comes from a 1950 paper by Alan Turing in which he talked about the possibility that a computer could one day pass itself […]
A deaf man has modified his hearing aid so that he can “hear” the presence of wireless networks. Writing in the New Scientist, Frank Swain says it’s an experiment to explore the way tech works for deaf people. With the modifications, the hearing aid makes different sounds to indicate both the quantity and type of […]
A bus powered entirely by food and human waste will started running in the UK next week. It does 186 miles on a full tank of what’s literally gas. The bio-bus, which can carry up to 40 passengers, runs on biomethane produced at a local sewage treatment center. The gas comes from both food waste […]
Toyota is to sell what’s being called the first mass-market fuel-cell car. But it’s very much a luxury product for now and won’t be dominating the highways any time soon. The model is called Mirai, which translates literally as “the future” but has a meaning that might more accurately be conveyed as “the distant future” […]
Google has agreed to lease a NASA airfield for 60 years in a deal worth $1.16 billion. It plans to use Moffett Federal Airfield for its space research subsidiary Planetary Ventures LLC. The airfield, in Mountain View in the San Francisco bay area, was originally a naval air base; NASA took control in 1994 when […]
A robotics firm owned by Google has programmed a human-sized robot to carry out the crane kick from The Karate Kid. The idea appears to be to show that the robot has the type of balance and depth perception that even real humans might find a challenge. It’s the work of Boston Dynamics, the firm […]
A machine that “prints” foods such as pizza is on the way. The Foodini is designed to make it easier to prepare fresh foods rather than rely on processed, prepared meals. While the device works along the lines of a 3D printer, it uses natural food ingredients rather than plastics. In principle it can work […]