Google has bought a firm that uses robotic kites to generate power using miniature wind turbines in the sky. Makani Power originally started with the assistance of ARPA-E, which isn’t the Defense Department’s gadget factory (that’s DARPA) but rather an agency of the Department of Energy exploring alternative power sources. Google had later come along […]
Transatlantic travelers took another step closer to ditching their phone chargers this week with two major wireless charging firms announcing they’ll use a common standard. The deal is between American firm Powermat and Finland-based PowerKiss, which are among the leading providers in North America and Europe respectively. Both firms use a form of inductive charging […]
A California teenager has attracted widespread media attention after creating a “supercapacitor” that could recharge a cellphone battery in under 30 seconds. But much of the coverage appears to have downplayed the word “could.” 18-year-old Esha Khare (pictured above left)ย won an Intel Young Scientist Award of $50,000 at the company’s International Science and Engineering Fair. […]
The makers of the blueprints for the first 3D printer-produced gun hoped to spark a debate on the first and second amendments to the US Constitution. That’s just what they’ve got thanks to a government demand to take the designs offline. The group Defense Distributed recently attracted attention with the first firing of a gun […]
What comes next after a car-plane hybrid? Why, a cross between a car and a helicopter of course. Terrafugia, the company behind a flying car due for delivery to buyers in a couple of years, is now working on a model that would take off vertically, meaning no runway would be required. As we covered […]
Staff at a government laboratory have revealed they’ve been using a quantum internet since late 2010. But it’s an extremely simple model and might not scale well. The idea of a quantum internet scales from quantum computing, which used the magnetic orientation of atomic particles as a way to encode 0s and 1s. Simply put, […]
LCD, LED, Plasma, OLED – These terms get uses by sales people at your local TV store, but do you REALLY understand what they mean? Learn the basics in under 3 minutes! [Techquickie]
The world’s smallest flying robot has made its maiden voyage. The tiny device uses electrically-powered movements that mirror the way a fly propels itself. The robot, dubbed RoboBee, is the work of staff at Harvard University. It’s barely bigger than a coin with a three-centimeter wingspan and weighs less than 0.1g. The carbon fiber robot […]
IBM researchers say they can use cellphone records to plan better bus routes. The claim comes in a entry for a contest to make the best use of cellphone data. The competition is titled Data for Development (or D4D) and is run by the Orange cellphone network. It’s published an anonymized dataset covering all calls […]
University of Illinois researchers say they’ve found a way to make batteries far smaller and much quicker to recharge. The technique works in the same way as traditional batteries, but makes much more efficient use of space. As the BBC explains with admirable clarity, batteries work by electrons flowing from one type of electrode (an […]