As someone who’s driven a number of years for hundreds of thousands of miles, I normally don't like someone telling me how to drive. I'm guiding the car at a speed I feel comfortable with, see the road obstacles ahead, and (supposedly) know where I’m going. Well, researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology...

This week’s question concerns space elevators. Last week, during NASA’s Space Elevator Games in the Mojave Desert, a robot powered by a ground-based laser beam scampered up a 2,953 foot cable suspended from a helicopter hovering almost a mile overhead. The trip took just over four minutes. The achievement,...

The declining fortunes of the U.S. automotive industry have had a direct impact on the robotics market. The latest data from the industry trade group Robotic Industries Association (RIA) saw robotic sales decline 30% in unit volume and 43% in dollar volume the first nine months of 2009. Robot sales to automotive...

With all the technology available to us today – iPods, smartphones, camcorders, portable computers – it is not hard to imagine people fully immersing themselves in their gadgets and various forms of media. But is technology causing people to become too self-absorbed? We asked readers this question in our Question of...

This week’s question concerns the impact technology is having on society. Technology has made it possible for people to share every aspect of their lives - both the good and the bad – with the entire world. The insatiable desire of some people to reach out and touch each other has made Web sites...

Over the years, I have learned not to place too much trust in weather forecasters. On a number of occasions, the forecasters have either underestimated or overestimated the severity or timing of predicted storms, or failed to predict weather events altogether. So I read with interest a story discussing NASA awarding a...

I have never rushed out to purchase the latest version of a software release. As long as my current software is running my programs smoothly and not experiencing constant freeze-ups, I’d rather not bother with the arduous process of backing up my data and hoping the new software does not stall midway through installation due...

The increasing presence of robots in industrial applications has been well documented. But robotic technology advances are also trickling down into the consumer market, creating a similar boom in the demand for personal robots. That is the conclusion of a new study by ABI Research titled “Personal Robotics 2009:...

This week’s question concerns Microsoft’s Windows 7 operating system. Microsoft released the new operating system last week to generally more favorable reviews than its bug-laden, slow-selling Vista predecessor. While Microsoft claims Windows 7 resolves many of Vista’s flaws, skeptics contend the software...

The Flightspeed Integral Image Analysis Toolkit (FIIAT) is a C library that provides image analysis functions in a single, portable package. It provides basic low-level filtering, texture analysis, and subwindow descriptor for applications dealing with image interpretation and object recognition. Designed...

The Work Coordination Engine (WCE) is a Java application integrated into the Service Management Database(SMDB), which coordinates the dispatching and monitoring of a work order system. WCE de-queues work orders from SMDB and orchestrates the dispatching of work to a registered set of software worker applications distributed...

Multi-Mission Automated Task Invocation Subsystem (MATIS) is software that establishes a distributed dataprocessing framework for automated generation of instrument data products from a spacecraft mission. Each mission may set up a set of MATIS servers for processing its data products. MATIS...

A computer program autonomously manages the calibration of a quadrupole ion mass spectrometer intended for use in monitoring concentrations and changes in concentrations of organic chemicals in the cabin air of the International Space Station. The instrument parameters calibrated include the...

Software was developed to characterize the drag in each of the Cassini spacecraft’s Reaction Wheel Assemblies (RWAs) to determine the RWA friction parameters. This tool measures the drag torque of RWAs for not only the high spin rates (>250 RPM), but also the low spin rates (coast-down...

Multiplexed colorimetric solid-phase extraction (MC-SPE) is an extension of colorimetric solid-phase extraction (CSPE) — an analytical platform that combines colorimetric reagents, solid phase extraction, and diffuse reflectance spectroscopy to quantify trace analytes in water. In C-SPE, analytes...