The world’s first jetpack racing league is poised to take off in 2019
Are you ready to enter the world of jetpack racing as a spectator sport? Jetpack Aviation recently tested the concept by carrying out some test flights in which two jetpack pilots flew within close proximity of one another. The next step is to put together a racing league.
Scientists create a way to make more breathable 3D-printed tissues
Researchers at Pennsylvania State University have found a new way to 3D print lab-made tissues, such as bone and cartilage. Their new method allows them to fabricate porous tissues, in which micro-pores allow nutrients and oxygen to circulate, keeping the cells healthy.
Self-driving car tech will soon help to judge gymnastics competitions
The laser-bouncing tech used in self driving cars could soon help to judge athletic contests. That's thanks to Fujistu, which has developed a lidar-based system which can calculate the exact angle of joints and limbs in gymnastics routines to take the guesswork out of judging.
Doomba uses your Roomba data to build new ‘Doom’ maps. You’re welcome
Enterprising game developer Rich Whitehouse recently decided to repurpose his Roomba vacuum's mapping data to create custom levels of the classic first-person shooter Doom. Because why the heck not? Here's his story, and how you can have a go at doing the same thing yourself.
Magical new AR demo transforms 2D photos into ‘Harry Potter’-style 3D animations
Researchers from the University of Washington and Facebook have created an AR tool which can animate stationary characters in 2D images, resulting in them literally walking off their flat backdrop. Because who has time for boring old still images as we reach the final days of 2018?
Caltech scientists used DNA to play the world’s tiniest game of tic-tac-toe
Researchers from the California Institute of Technology have used nanotechnology bioengineering to create the world's tiniest ever version of the game tic-tac-toe. This is why that's so exciting -- and what it suggests about the future of self-repairing nanotech machines.
Robot improves your guitar playing by zapping you with a taser when you screw up
Is this one of the year's weirdest gadgets? This electrical engineer recently built a robot that will help you learn to play the guitar better. Unfortunately, it does this by zapping you with a taser whenever you play the wrong note. Check out a video demo of it in action.
Will Fido take a bite out of delivery robots? Study uses guide dogs to find out
A charity recently partnered with autonomous delivery robot company Starship Technologies to test the impact autonomous technologies are likely to have on guide dogs when they encounter them. The results? They get on just fine. That's great news for robot delivery services.
Creepy Christmas carol: 3D-printed robotic hand plays ‘Jingle Bells’ on a piano
Nothing says it’s nearly Christmas' quite like a 3D-printed robot hand busting out a festive classic on the piano. That's what researchers at the U.K.'s University of Cambridge recently developed. And while it's a fun bit of holiday good cheer, it's also important research.
IBM’s wearable tech monitors your health by checking your hand strength
IBM has developed a fingernail sensor prototype, designed to measure your grip strength throughout the day. By analyzing this data using machine learning algorithms, changes can be monitored over time and potentially used to alert clinicians of possible health concerns.
Baby in remote village is first person to receive a vaccine delivered by drone
A 1-month-old baby on a remote island in the South Pacific country of Vanuatu recently became the first person to receive a vaccine delivered by a commercial drone. The drone was flown across 40 kilometers of rugged mountains, which would otherwise have taken hours to cross.
From drones to smart pills, 2018 saw significant tech advances in medicine
Robots, A.I. algorithms, and drone deliveries are increasingly found in just about every industry and profession, Why not the medical world, too? Here are 2018's most significant landmark events where cutting-edge technology met medicine -- for better or, in one case, for worse.
Researchers use sound waves to levitate up to 25 tiny objects at the same time
Researchers from the U.K, and Spain have found a way to levitate up to 25 different objects using sound. One day these 'acoustic tweezers' could create three-dimensional pixel displays in mid-air or let a surgeon stitch up internal injuries without physically touching a patient.
U.S. military wants to use bioengineered sea bacteria to spot enemy subs, drones
The U.S. military wants to use water-based microorganisms to detect enemy submarines, underwater drones, and divers. Think of it like a living proximity sensor and you won’t be too far off course. Here's how it could work -- and why genetic tools could be the future of military tech.
Groundbreaking stem cell brain implant helps fight epilepsy in rats
Severe epilepsy is very difficult to treat, but an experimental approach involving implanted stem cells in the brain represents a groundbreaking way to potentially stop seizures for good. So far, it has been demonstrated in rats, but treatment for humans isn't out of the question.
Watch this weird spider robot perform a crazy aerobics routine
Created by Hong Kong-based company Robugtix, this oddball Z6 spider robot could one day be used for search and rescue missions or exploration on the surface of other planets. For now, though, you’ll have to settle for watching it perform in a 1980s-style aerobics music video.
Musk’s Boring Company unveils its first high-speed, Tesla-launching tunnel
Almost exactly two years to the day since Elon Musk announced his tunnel-constructing Boring Company, the company has unveiled its first stretch of high-speed tunnel in Hawthorne, California. The 1.14-mile tunnel was used to transport a modified Tesla Model X SUV at 50 miles per hour.
Ultrasound technology can greatly reduce number of bats killed by wind turbines
Wind turbines are a great source of renewable energy. However, these giants sets of spinning blades also happen to have a bat-murdering problem that would put the Dark Knight’s rogues gallery of villains to shame. Fortunately, echolocation-blocking technology may be able to help.
It will soon be much easier for tiny satellites to transmit images back to Earth
CubeSats are versatile miniature satellite made up of multiple 10×10×10-cm, cube-shaped units. As exciting as they are, however, they have a problem: Their size stops them easily feeding back the video and images they take to Earth. A new approach pioneered by MIT could help.
New adhesive tech could let you remove Band-Aids with a blast of UV light
It doesn’t matter if you do it slowly and carefully or rip it off in one go, pulling off Band-Aids still really, really sucks. But that could be about to change, however -- thanks to a new type of adhesive that can be easily detached using a specific frequency of UV light.
Self-driving dirt rally car offers crash course in autonomous safety
The kind of project that Vin Diesel might suggest as a computer science project, Georgia Tech's AutoRally initiative pushes self-driving cars to their limits by getting scaled-down autonomous vehicles to drive really, really fast and aggressively on dirt roads. Here's why.
‘Crop duster’ robot is helping reseed the Great Barrier Reef with coral
In a world first, an undersea robot developed by Australia’s Queensland University of Technology has delivered microscopic coral larvae to the Great Barrier Reef to help with its respawning. Meet Larvalbot: the robot 'crop duster' which dispenses coral babies on troubled reefs.
MIT’s smart capsule could be used to release drugs in response to a fever
Researchers have developed a 3D-printed capsule controlled using Bluetooth technology. Once ingested by a patient, it can monitor their vital signs, transmit this information to a connected device, and be programmed to release its drug cargo over time in response to symptoms.
Rise of the Machines: Here’s how much robots and A.I. progressed in 2018
2018 has generated no shortage of news, and the fast-changing worlds of artificial intelligence and robotics are no exception. Here are our picks for the most exciting and game changing examples of A.I. and robots that we saw in the last 12 months. Get ready to have your mind blown!
Capture app saves money by 3D scanning objects using iPhone’s TrueDepth camera
Capture is a new iPhone app created by the Y Combinator-backed startup Standard Cyborg. By leveraging the sensors and cameras in Apple’s newest smartphones, it allows anyone to perform 3D scans of objects and share them with buddies and colleagues. Here is how it works.
CRISPR gene therapy regulates hunger, staves off severe obesity in mice
Researchers from University of California, San Francisco have demonstrated how CRISPR gene editing can be used to prevent severe obesity in mice. Amazingly, they achieved this long-lasting weight control without having to make one single edit to the mice’s genome. Here's how.
Thrill-seekers will be able to pilot themselves in a giant drone as soon as 2019
Want to hitch a ride on a giant drone? The startup Lift Aircraft is gearing up to let paying customers fly its 18-rotor giant drone over assorted scenic landscapes across the U.S. The best part of it? The company hopes to launch this service as soon as the middle of 2019.
There’s a new lab-grown meat startup on the block — and it has a secret weapon
Israeli startup Aleph Farms is taking a different approach. Like the better-known company Memphis Meats, it’s attempting to create lab-grown meat with the same familiar flavor, shape, texture, and structure of the real thing. Aleph’s approach seeks to grow its beef by using natural beef cells isolated from a cow.
There’s a giant EMP blaster in New Mexico. Don’t worry, it’s here to protect us
An electromagnetic pulse weapon has the potential to disable virtually every electronic device within a massive area. To help protect the U.S. against such a threat, researchers at Sandia National Laboratories just installed a new 'friendly' EMP emitter. Here's how it works.
Virgin Galactic’s latest test flight takes it to the edge of space
Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic has successfully carried out its fourth powered flight in Mojave, California. The flight took the company’s VSS Unity SpaceShipTwo suborbital spaceplane to the edge of space. It was the company's most ambitious test flight yet -- and bodes well for the future.
This cryptocurrency wallet for kids isn’t nearly as stupid as it sounds
So you’ve taught your 6-year-old child to read, write, and play nice with others. What’s next? Give them a basic understanding of how cryptocurrencies function, of course. Called Pigzbe, this Kickstarter smart wallet for youngsters aims to help. Here's how it all works.
This unusual nature-inspired robot is equally at home on land or in the water
The U.S. startup Pliant Energy Systems has developed an intriguing, nature-inspired robot called Velox that's every bit as comfortable moving on land as it is in the water. Heck, it can even travel on ice without problem! Check it out in full otherworldly action right here.
A lidar-equipped truck knows exactly how much de-icer to apply on roads
Lidar is probably best known as the laser-based technology that helps self-driving cars to sense their surroundings. But the city of Knoxville has another use for it: Helping to determine how much de-icing agent should be sprayed onto winter roads. The results could help save lives.
With this robotic garage, retrieving your car is like using a vending machine
Remembering where we parked our cars in a crowded parking lot can be a real pain. But what if our cars came to find us, rather than the other way around? A new automated robot parking valet system aims to help. Retrieving your car is as simple as loading up a smartphone app.