Blog

Tech Briefs writers and editors share their opinions and find the fun, interesting, and unexpected stories behind today's leading-edge inventions.

Blog: Materials
Researchers say that by building a structure out of DNA and then coating it with glass, they have created a very strong material with very low density.
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Blog: Energy
Zinc-air batteries have emerged as a better alternative to lithium in a recent study into the advancement of sustainable battery systems.
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Blog: Electronics & Computers
Addressing the challenge of designing and developing a first-of-its-kind handheld controller for flight simulations.
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Blog: Medical
A new potential path toward greener ways to make chemicals: By adapting hydrogen fuel cell technologies, which are already used to power some EVs, laptops, and cell phones.
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Blog: AR/AI
In the digital-design-engineering world, at the foundation of innovation in advanced manufacturing, AI’s “deep learning” has the potential to transform how the world makes products — in highly positive ways.
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Blog: Electronics & Computers
Imagine an iPad with a surface that can morph and deform, allowing you to draw 3D designs, create haiku poems that jump out from the screen, and even hold your partner’s hand from an ocean away. Such is the vision of a team from the University of Colorado Boulder.
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Blog: Design
Researchers at North Carolina State University have developed a robotic gripping device that is gentle, strong, dexterous, and precise enough to pick up microfilms that are 20 times thinner than a human hair.
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Blog: Connectivity
These days all electronics seems to be digital, except for a few exceptions here and there. However, it’s a mistake to write analog off altogether.
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Blog: Sensors/Data Acquisition
Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin have modified a commercial virtual reality (VR) headset, giving it the ability to measure brain activity and examine how we react to hints, stressors, and other outside forces.
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Blog: Sensors/Data Acquisition
Researchers developed a prototype for the Li-ion battery, which could lead to stretchy electronics or even clothes that monitor health.
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Blog: Manufacturing & Prototyping
The new method paves the way to creating large-scale arrays of optical components and could be used to rapidly manufacture micro-LED displays.
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Blog: Electronics & Computers
Quantum-computer designers are constantly faced with challenges, but a new device from a team at NIST may make them easier to solve.
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Blog: Connectivity
Sensors are getting smarter and smarter. Without them there would be no IoT, or IIoT, or Industry 4.0.
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Blog: Design
Researchers have demonstrated how carbon dioxide can be captured from industrial processes — or even directly from the air — and transformed into clean, sustainable fuels using just the energy from the sun.
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Blog: Design
Researchers have developed machine learning tools that can extract details about individual buildings from maps to make 3D digital models.
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Blog: Energy
Safety sensor systems require lots of special attention to their design and operation, everything that should be considered in any kind of design, but with double the attention. And there are also unique safety requirements as well.
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Blog: Manufacturing & Prototyping
The team has developed a prototype metamaterial that uses electrical signals to control both the direction and intensity of energy waves passing through a solid material.
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Blog: Energy
Many owners of EVs worry about how their battery will perform in extremely cold temperatures. However, a new battery chemistry may have solved that problem.
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Blog: Aerospace
Phosphorous VP of Product Sonu Shankar outlines the xIoT approach to cyber protection for satellites.
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Blog: Imaging
Engineers at the University of Waterloo have discovered a new way to program robots to help people with dementia locate objects they need but have lost.
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Blog: Manufacturing & Prototyping
The Augmented Listening Laboratory at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is using 3D-printed, humanoid robots for research to improve acoustics.
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Blog: Robotics, Automation & Control
The artificial intelligence platform — BacterAI — mapped the metabolism of two microbes associated with oral health — with no baseline information to start with.
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Blog: Design
When you're working to develop something new, something really innovative, you're going to fail — over and over. The difference between finally succeeding, or not, is whether you keep on going anyway, so you can learn something new from each failure.
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Blog: Medical
Engineers at University of California San Diego have developed a fully integrated system for deep-tissue monitoring.
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Blog: Motion Control
A group of researchers wants to teach robots how to predict human preferences in assembly tasks, so they can one day help out on everything from building a satellite to setting a table.
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Blog: Manufacturing & Prototyping
The technology would be pivotal in a portable mass spectrometer that could help monitor pollutants, perform medical diagnoses in remote areas, or even test Martian soil.
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Blog: Electronics & Computers
Peter Fuhr has invented a new way to hide sensitive electric grid information from cyberattack: a constantly changing color palette.
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Blog: Sensors/Data Acquisition
The wearable sensor aims to help patients who suffer from muscle atrophy monitor changes to their health in a more convenient way.
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Blog: Data Acquisition
Researchers have created software that is able to verify how much information an AI system farmed from an organization’s digital database.
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