Blog

Choosing Exoskeleton Settings like a Music-Streaming App

Taking inspiration from music-streaming services, engineers have designed the simplest way for users to program their own exoskeleton assistance settings.

VR Therapy Aims to Help Those with Hoarding Disorder

Virtual reality therapy could allow those with hoarding disorder to rehearse relinquishing possessions in a simulation of their own home, which could help them declutter in real life.

Plant-Based Soft Robots Take on the Medical Industry

Researchers have created smart, advanced materials that will be the building blocks for a future generation of soft medical microrobots.

My Opinion: Engineers Can Help Solve Social Problems

This past year’s Technology and Society articles in Tech Briefs magazine describe different ways engineers are making significant contributions to improving our lives.

Using AI to Track Animal Behavior

A Salk team has created GlowTrack, a non-invasive movement tracking method that uses fluorescent dye markers to train AI.

Shape-Changing Smart Speaker Lets Users Mute Areas of a Room

Researchers have developed a shape-changing smart speaker, which uses self-deploying microphones to divide rooms into speech zones.

Combustion-Powered, Bug-Sized Robots can Leap, Lift, and Race

Researchers combined soft microactuators with high-energy-density chemical fuel to create an insect-scale quadrupedal robot that is powered by combustion.

Bendy-but-Sturdy Robot Autonomously Travels Through Lung Tissue

Researchers have demonstrated that their steerable robot can autonomously maneuver the intricacies of the lung, while avoiding important lung structures.

New Hydrogel Uses Just Energy from Sunlight to Create Water

Researchers at University of Texas at Austin were able to pull water out of the atmosphere and make it drinkable using solar energy, in conditions as low as 104°.

New Tech Speeds Up Bacterial Testing in Food

A promising technology that could potentially revolutionize the process of testing bacterial viability in food.

Wi-Fi that Can Read Through Walls

The technique has enabled, for the first time, imaging the English alphabet through walls with Wi-Fi, a task once deemed too difficult.

My Opinion: Use the IIoT — Thoughtfully

The connected factory has a lot to offer, but getting it from the minds of the designers to a working system on the shop floor is not a simple process.

New Material Will Burn Viruses, Not Skin

A new material uses Joule heating to decontaminate its surface of coronaviruses like SARS-CoV-2 in under 5 seconds, effectively killing at least 99.9 percent of viruses.

A Li-ion Battery Material for Faster, More Efficient EV Charging

ORNL researchers recently developed a Li-ion battery material that not only recharges 80 percent of its capacity in 10 minutes but keeps that ability for 1,500 charging cycles.

Using Coffee to Reduce Waste from 3D Printing

Researchers have already experimented with using coffee grounds to 3D print jewelry, pots for plants, and even, fittingly, espresso cups. The technique is also simple enough that it will work on most low-cost, consumer-grade 3D printers.

DNA Combined with Glass Results in a Stronger, Lighter Material

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.

Zinc-Air Batteries: A Cheaper, Safer Alternative to Li-ion Batteries

Zinc-air batteries have emerged as a better alternative to lithium in a recent study into the advancement of sustainable battery systems.

Revolutionizing Flight Simulation with 3D Printing

Addressing the challenge of designing and developing a first-of-its-kind handheld controller for flight simulations.

Hydrogen: A Potential Green Path to Making Chemicals

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.

AI and AM: A Powerful Synergy

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.

3D Display Could Bring Touch to the Digital World

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.

A Gentle-Yet-Strong, Dexterous, Precise, Robotic Gripper

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.

Whatever Happened to Analog in this Digital Age?

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.

Modified EEG Measures Brain's Electrical Activity During Immersive VR Interactions

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.

A Stretchable, Fabric-Based Li-ion Battery

Researchers developed a prototype for the Li-ion battery, which could lead to stretchy electronics or even clothes that monitor health.

An Approach to Inexpensively Mass Manufacture Micro-LED Displays

The new method paves the way to creating large-scale arrays of optical components and could be used to rapidly manufacture micro-LED displays.

'Toggle Switch' Could Help Quantum Computers Become More Versatile

Quantum-computer designers are constantly faced with challenges, but a new device from a team at NIST may make them easier to solve.

Sensors — the Heart of the IoT

Sensors are getting smarter and smarter. Without them there would be no IoT, or IIoT, or Industry 4.0.

Clean, Sustainable Fuels Made from ‘Thin Air’ and Plastic Waste

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.