Stories

Penn State University researchers have used a beam deflector to increase the speed of 2D and 3D printing by up to 1000 times.

Virginia Tech researchers have produced flexible solar panels that can become part of window shades or wallpaper. The material will capture light from the sun as well as light from sources inside buildings.

This week’s Question: Ride-hailing company Uber recently released a white paper outlining its new transport service: the flying car. The company envisions a “network of small, electric aircraft that take off and land vertically.” The proposal aims to use airspace to relieve transportation...

Imagine cell phones with 3D floating displays, or credit cards with three-dimensional security markings. By using just one layer of nanoscale metallic film, researchers at Missouri University of Science and Technology have reconstructed 3D full-color holographic images. The technique supports...

This week's Question: World-famous physicist Stephen Hawking recently warned that the creation of powerful artificial intelligence will be “either the best, or the worst thing, ever to happen to humanity.” Hawking noted the risks of creating superintelligence with a will of its...

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed a computational model that makes sense of the ambient vibrations that travel up a structure as trucks and other forces rumble by. By picking out specific features in the noise that give indications of a building’s...

Northeastern University scientist Brian Helmuth and other researchers have developed "robomussels" that monitor climate change. The tiny devices have miniature built-in sensor that track temperatures inside the mussel beds.

This week's Question: Sony Computer Science Laboratory (CSL) in Paris is developing a system of algorithms which can create songs that cater to the user's taste, based on styles adapted from existing music. Starting with a sheet-music database of more than 13,000 existing songs, users choose several titles...

A “programmable viscoelastic material” (PVM) from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) allows users to program every single part of a 3D-printed object, including exact levels of stiffness and elasticity.

This week's Question: MasterCard has tested facial biometrics for payment authentication and has now begun rolling out its MasterCard Identity Check, or "selfie pay," to a greater number of users. The biometric authentication app is available throughout Europe, including Austria, Belgium, the...

A research team led by faculty scientist Ali Javey at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has created a transistor with a working 1-nanometer gate — the smallest to date.

Researchers from California Institute of Technology are proposing the idea of a modular space telescope that could be assembled by robots. The space observatory would have a primary mirror with a diameter of 100 meters — 40 times larger than the Hubble Space Telescope.

This week's Question: Solar Roadways — a startup developing solar powered road panels — will soon install the first solar road tiles in Sandpoint, Idaho. The transparent solar road panels contain colorful LEDs, which can be controlled by a computer to create the impression of signs and lines, without the need of...

This week's Question: This fall, Starship Technologies, an Estonia-based startup created by two Skype co-founders, will begin testing its autonomous delivery robot in Washington, D.C. Washington is the first U.S. municipality to approve ground-based robots to traverse city sidewalks. Starship aims to...