Blog

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

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Blog: Lighting Technology
Light-emitting diode (LED) solid-state lighting technology offers low power consumption and cost, small size, and a long lifespan. Plus, it’s environmentally friendly.
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Blog: Green Design & Manufacturing
Instead of disposing of batteries after three years, we could have recyclable batteries that last three times longer.
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Blog: Manufacturing & Prototyping
A flapping-wing robot that can land autonomously on a horizontal perch using a claw-like mechanism.
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Blog: Data Acquisition
See 10 AR/VR technologies from CES 2023.
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Blog: Design
A counterintuitive way to protect atomically thin electronics: adding vibrations to reduce vibration issues.
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Blog: Defense
A study has perhaps solved the wind-turbine issue of causing harm to bats.
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Blog: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
See Tech Briefs’ top-performing quizzes of 2022.
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Blog: Green Design & Manufacturing
See Tech Briefs’ most-read stories of 2022.
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Blog: Manufacturing & Prototyping
The epsilon iron oxide nanoparticles could be continuously produced through a micrometer-sized powder manufacturing process.
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Blog: Energy
The battery was made using sodium-sulphur — a type of molten salt that can be processed from sea water at a low cost.
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Blog: Design
Gift giving always induces anxiety. It’s never easy to pick a present that someone will enjoy, especially if the recipient is an engineer.
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Blog: Materials
A research team has demonstrated a promising method to easily manufacture self-folding origami honeycomb structures.
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Blog: Sensors/Data Acquisition
The work showed that when a certain level of force inverts a dome, embedded sensors surrounding the dome can detect the change.
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Blog: Automotive
For automated driving, LiDAR combines the best features of two of the other sensing technologies: radar and cameras.
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Blog: Propulsion
The Artemis I launch took place at Launch Pad 39B at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida with support from University of Central Florida alums, faculty, and students. However, it didn’t go off without a hitch.
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Blog: Energy
Power electronics are critical for renewable energy. They require special design and testing to ensure that they will reliably perform their critical duties.
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Blog: Data Acquisition
UCLA engineers have designed a new class of material that can learn behaviors over time and develop a “muscle memory” of its own.
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Blog: Motion Control
The drawing machine uses pens with ink containing conductive material or regular mechanical pencils with varying graphite content.
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Blog: Design
The new materials are hard enough to stir molten steel and can withstand temperatures above 7,000 degrees Fahrenheit — about the same temperatures found just a few hundred miles above the surface of the sun.
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Blog: Manufacturing & Prototyping
The system aims to add the sense of touch to the metaverse for use in virtual-reality shopping and gaming, and potentially facilitate the work of astronauts and other professions that require the use of thick gloves.
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Blog: Green Design & Manufacturing
Scientists say that such oil-rich duckweed could easily be harvested to produce biofuels or other bioproducts.
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Blog: Design
“This new technology will help to fully realize the potential of 3D printing. It will allow us to print much faster, helping to usher in a new era of digital manufacturing, as well as to enable the fabrication of complex, multi-material objects in a single step.”
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Blog: Design
Using jet fuel as a means to power five gas turbines, the suit can propel pilots about 40 mph for up to eight minutes and can generate more than 1,000 horsepower.
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Blog: Electronics & Computers
Engineers have created new high-power electronic devices that are more energy efficient than their predecessors.
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Blog: Design
According to the NASA Earth Observatory, air temperatures on Earth have been rising since the Industrial Revolution. Here is a suggestion about one way that engineers could help reduce the problems caused by that in their everyday work.
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Blog: Robotics, Automation & Control
Engineers have installed tiny electronic “brains” on solar-powered robots so that the machines can walk autonomously, sans external control.
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Blog: Lighting Technology
Engineers developed soft devices containing algae that glow when under mechanical stress —perfect for building soft robots.
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Blog: Sensors/Data Acquisition
One method for keeping removed carbon out of the atmosphere long-term involves injecting CO2 into rock formations deep underground.
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Blog: Robotics, Automation & Control
We humans are adept at using audio and visual cues for communication while carrying out collaborative tasks. Now researchers are aiming to implement gestural interaction in a networked system of robots.
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