Tech Xplore news
Tech Xplore / PhoneBot gives old smartphones a new job on two legs
Smartphones combine cameras, motion sensors and powerful processors in devices that fit inside a pocket. These features could also make them useful components for robots, reducing the need to buy and connect separate sensors, ...
Tech Xplore / Simple math formula predicts when AI chatbots will go rogue
Most of us now carry in our pockets devices capable of running small AI chatbots. These chatbots have little safety oversight to ensure they don't provide information and answers with the potential to encourage self-harm, ...
Tech Xplore / Heat-storing gel could cut buildings' energy consumption
Heating and cooling buildings account for a large portion of global energy use. A research team in the Texas A&M University Department of Materials Science and Engineering was featured on the cover of ACS Applied Materials ...
Tech Xplore / Autonomous vehicles can still see lanes through tampered sensors—but in the wrong place
Driver-assistance systems are now installed in nearly all modern cars. As a result, safety depends on whether computer systems can reliably process sensor data. Researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) are ...
Tech Xplore / Overlooked indium selenide phase enables wafer-scale logic transistors
Just as carbon atoms arranged in different ways can form either graphite or diamond—the hardest natural material—semiconductor materials can also exhibit completely different properties depending on their atomic arrangements. ...
Tech Xplore / Can your employer demand proof that you've slept well?
Fatigue can be just as dangerous as drunken driving. That is why both researchers and companies are increasingly investing in technologies that can monitor and improve our sleep. But what happens if sleep is no longer regarded ...
Tech Xplore / Platinum in fuel cells lasts longer with nitrogen-enhanced graphene wrapper
Researchers from Nagoya University in Japan have developed a durable fuel-cell catalyst by wrapping platinum nanoparticles in nitrogen-containing graphene and placing them on carbon nanotubes. This design retained 96.9% of ...
Tech Xplore / Simple modification improves commercial resin for direct air capture
To mitigate climate change, direct air capture of carbon dioxide (CO₂) from the atmosphere has emerged as an increasingly attractive option for limiting global warming. But scaling up systems to remove and safely store enough ...
Tech Xplore / AI startup Manus raises $500 million after Meta acquisition blocked by China
AI startup Manus, whose acquisition by Meta was blocked by the Chinese government, said Thursday it had completed a funding round that raised more than $500 million.
Tech Xplore / Microsoft pushes AI vision with new, expensive Surface laptop
Microsoft is pushing a "hybrid intelligence" future with a new Surface Ultra laptop that runs on Nvidia artificial intelligence (AI) chips and will cost more than $2,500, the company announced Wednesday.
Tech Xplore / New wireless system could power medical implants as they stretch
Over the past few decades, electronics engineers have developed increasingly sophisticated implantable medical devices. Reliably powering some of these devices, however, can be challenging, particularly when they are based ...
Tech Xplore / Threadlike motor uses sliding fibers to drive flexible robotic devices without gears
In 2023, researchers in the Soft Transducers Laboratory in EPFL's School of Engineering presented the world's first pump in the form of a fiber. The pump's flexible tubing can generate its own fluid pressure and flow rate ...
