Tech Xplore news

Tech Xplore / New memristor training method slashes AI energy use by six orders of magnitude

In a Nature Communications study, researchers from China have developed an error-aware probabilistic update (EaPU) method that aligns memristor hardware's noisy updates with neural network training, slashing energy use by ...

Jan 18, 2026 in Hardware
Tech Xplore / A new approach to energy harvesting opened up by the quantum world

Touch the back of a laptop and it often feels warm. This is because part of the energy used for computation and communication escapes to the outside as heat. Yet even this "waste heat" still contains a great deal of usable ...

Jan 18, 2026 in Energy & Green Tech
Tech Xplore / Soft robotic hand 'sees' around corners to achieve human-like touch

To reliably complete household chores, assemble products and tackle other manual tasks, robots should be able to adapt their manipulation strategies based on the objects they are working with, similarly to how humans leverage ...

Jan 17, 2026 in Robotics
Tech Xplore / OpenAI introducing ads to ChatGPT

OpenAI announced Friday it will begin testing advertisements on ChatGPT in the coming weeks, as the wildly popular artificial intelligence chatbot seeks to increase revenue to cover its soaring costs.

Jan 16, 2026 in Internet
Tech Xplore / Tougher solid electrolyte advances long-sought lithium metal batteries

A solid—rather than liquid—electrolyte between the opposite electrodes of a battery should, in theory, enable a rechargeable lithium metal battery that is safer, packs much more energy, and charges considerably faster ...

Jan 16, 2026 in Engineering
Tech Xplore / New RoboReward dataset and models automate robotic training and evaluation

The advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms has opened new possibilities for the development of robots that can reliably tackle various everyday tasks. Training and evaluating these algorithms, however, typically ...

Jan 15, 2026 in Robotics
Tech Xplore / Soft, 3D transistors could host living cells for bioelectronics

New research from the WISE group (Wearable, Intelligent, Soft Electronics) at The University of Hong Kong (HKU-WISE) has addressed a long-standing bioelectronic challenge: the development of soft, 3D transistors.

Tech Xplore / Sub-zero green freezer achieves zero emissions

Researchers at the School of Engineering of The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) have developed the world's first sub-zero Celsius elastocaloric freezing device, capable of reaching temperatures as low ...

Jan 15, 2026 in Engineering
Tech Xplore / Novel thick electrode enhances battery power and capacity for a 75% increase in output

A research team affiliated with UNIST has unveiled a new type of thick electrode aimed at solving a common challenge in battery design: As the capacity increases, power often decreases. This breakthrough could enable electric ...

Jan 15, 2026 in Engineering
Tech Xplore / AIs behaving badly: An AI trained to deliberately make bad code will become bad at unrelated tasks, too

Artificial intelligence models that are trained to behave badly on a narrow task may generalize this behavior across unrelated tasks, such as offering malicious advice, suggests a new study. The research probes the mechanisms ...

Jan 15, 2026 in Security
Tech Xplore / Underwater robots inspired by nature are making progress, but hurdles remain

Underwater robots face many challenges before they can truly master the deep, such as stability in choppy currents. A new paper published in the journal npj Robotics provides a comprehensive update of where the technology ...

Jan 14, 2026 in Robotics
Tech Xplore / An earthquake on a chip: New tech could make smartphones smaller, faster

A team of engineers has made major strides in generating the tiniest earthquakes imaginable. The team's device, known as a surface acoustic wave phonon laser, could one day help scientists make more sophisticated versions ...

Jan 14, 2026 in Engineering