Twitter is officially a teenager now. Are we raising a monster?
On March 21, 2006, Jack Dorsey sent the first ever tweet. Thirteen years later, Twitter has fundamentally changed the way we communicate. Here are some of the myriad ways that the popular microblogging service has amplified the human experience, for better and for worse.
Astronomers plan to beam Earth’s greatest hits into deep space, and you can help
If you could send a message to a potential alien civilization, what would it sound like? Think on that, as a new project from the SETI Institute (search for extraterrestrial intelligence) will give the public the chance to submit musical compositions to be beamed into space.
Cheese tastes different when it listens to Led Zeppelin, Swiss study finds
A funky new study says that exposing cheese to music changes its aroma and flavor. What’s more, the genre of music matters. Researchers from the Bern University of Arts played music to nine, 22-pound wheels of Emmental cheese, a semi-firm variety of Swiss cheese popular in Europe.
Researchers gave alligators headphones and ketamine, and all for a good cause
Researchers in Germany and the United States recently gave ketamine and earphones to alligators to monitor how they process noise. It sounds a bit crazy, but it actually helps reveal some important insights into the evolution of gators and their links to dinosaur ancestors.
Tombot is the hyper-realistic dog robot that puts Spot to shame
Forget Boston Dynamics’ Spot robot canine, and move over Sony’s Aibo! When it comes to robot dogs, the folks behind a new Kickstarter campaign have plans to stake their claim as makers of man’s (and woman’s) newest best friend. Here's how it works and who it aims to help.
A silver bullet is being aimed at the drug-resistant superbugs on the ISS
Superbugs can pose a serious health risk for astronauts, as a bacteria which is benign here on Earth can mutate into a drug-resistant superbug once it enters space. Now this problem is being tackled by a team of microbiologists who have found a way to inhibit the spread of bacteria in the ISS.
The U.S. Army is building a giant VR battlefield to train soldiers virtually
Imagine if U.S. Army soldiers were able to rehearse battlezone scenarios dozens, or even hundreds, or times before setting foot on actual terrain. That's what the Department of Defense's new VR Synthetic Training Environment hopes to make possible. Here is how it works.
Inflating smart pills could be a painless alternative to injections
Could an inflating pill containing hidden microneedles be a replacement for painful injections? The creators of the RaniPill robotic capsule certainly think so -- and they've got the human trials to help back them up. Here's how the next generation medical device works.
Sony’s Aibo robot dog can now patrol your home for persons of interest
Sony released the all-new Aibo in the U.S. about nine months ago, and since then the robot dog has (hopefully) been melting owners' hearts with its cute looks and clever tricks. A new software update released this week gives the computer-powered pet a new feature called Aibo Patrol.
British Airways’ new Club Suite for business class comes with a door
British Airways is going after a bigger slice of the business class market with the imminent launch of the Club Suite. The plush seating offers a more private space and does away with the 2-4-2 configuration that left high-paying passengers having to clamber over each other to reach the aisle.
Nvidia’s A.I. Playground lets you edit photos, experience deep learning research
On Monday, March 18, Nvidia launched the A.I. Playground, a new online space where anyone can experience all the raw power of its deep learning research. The new website currently features three demos for image editing, styling, as well as photorealistic image synthesis.
At $99, Nvidia’s Jetson Nano minicomputer seeks to bring robotics to the masses
At GTC, Nvidia announced a new AI computer, the Jetson Nano. This tiny computer comes with a 128-core GPU that Nvidia claims can handle pretty much any A.I. framework you could imagine. At $99, it makes for an affordable way for A.I. newbies to get in the game, including in fields outside the conventional data sciences.
Racing to catch a flight? Robot valet at French airport will park your car
Hate searching for parking at the airport when you need to catch a plane? At France’s Lyon Airport, startup Stanley Robotics has unveiled a new outdoor automated robotic valet system. It means that customers can drop off their car and then leave robots to take care of the rest.
A.I.-generated text is supercharging fake news. This is how we fight back
Last month, OpenAI announced a text generating A.I. so scarily accurate they claimed it would be dangerous to release it. Now researchers have developed a tool to help spot text written by bots. Here's what it means for the future of fake news in an age of smart machines.
Robot assistants from Toyota and Panasonic gear up for the Tokyo Olympics
As you might expect with a country like Japan, the nation plans to use next year’s Tokyo Olympics to showcase a range of its advanced technologies. Sponsors Toyota and Panasonic are already getting in on the act, recently unveiling several robotic designs that they intend to deploy at the event.
Take a dip in the Lagoon Nebula in first image from SPECULOOS instrument
The European Southern Observatory has released the first image collected by their new SPECULOOS instrument, and it's a stunning portrait of the Lagoon Nebula. SPECULOOS isn't designed to study nebulae -- it is designed to search for habitable planets -- but it's hard to object to the gorgeous results.
Cosmic dust bunnies: Scientists find unexpected ring around Mercury
A pair of scientists searching for a dust-free region near the Sun have made an unexpected discovery: a vast dust ring around the tiny planet Mercury. Scientists had thought that the energy of solar winds would blow away any dust so close to the Sun, but the new findings show that's not the case.
New Hubble image displays dazzling Messier 28 globular cluster
Messier 28 is a group of stars in the constellation of Sagittarius, located 18,000 light-years from us. It is a collection of stars that is tightly bound together by gravity and which orbits around a galactic core. As the gravity is strong, the stars are at a high density.
Body surrogate robot helps people with motor impairments care for themselves
Assistive technologies can benefit people with disabilities by giving them greater independence and control over their lives. A team from Georgia Tech has been working on an assistant robot to help people who have severe motor impairments with tasks like shaving, brushing their hair, and drinking water.
Desk lamps take on a new task by converting their light to power
What if we could charge devices using light from indoor sources like desk lamps? A group of scientists working on a technology called organic photovoltaics aim to do just that. The team from Kyushu University has developed special light harvesters optimized to produce energy from ambient indoor lighting.
Mind-bending model shows Venus isn’t our nearest neighbor — it’s Mercury
Every textbook and table on the internet agrees -- the closest planet to Earth is Venus. But according to a new article in Physics Today, a new mathematical model shows that our assumptions about the distances between planets are wrong. In fact, the planet closest to us on average is Mercury.
Super telescope captures supermassive black holes forming billions of years ago
A camera mounted to the massive 8.2m Subaru Telescope in Hawaii has captured evidence of supermassive black holes forming in the ancient universe. Astronomers have discovered 83 quasars powered by supermassive black holes from billions of years ago, in the first 10 percent of the universe’s current age.
Gorgeous image of the Cosmic Bat nebula leaves us starry-eyed
The Cosmic Bat nebula has been captured in beautiful detail by the European Southern Observatory. Formally known as NGC 1788, the nebula is two thousand light-years away in a dark corner of the Orion constellation. It is a "reflection nebula" which does not give off any light of its own.
A lunar time capsule: 50-year-old moon rock samples to be opened for study
Nearly 50 years after the Apollo missions to the Moon, NASA is breaking open samples of Moon rock for the first time. Samples collected from Apollo missions 15, 16, and 17 have been preserved and never exposed to Earth's atmosphere, making them invaluable resources.
Opportunity’s final image is a haunting panorama of the Martian surface
The Opportunity mission to Mars may be no more, but the rover's legacy lives on. Now NASA has released the final image captured by Opportunity, and it's a stunning panorama of the Martian surface showing the rover's tracks, the floor of the Perseverance Valley, and the Endeavour crater.
This very talented robotic leg learned to walk all by itself
Researchers at the University of Southern California have developed a robotic limb capable of walking without preprogrammed knowledge of the task. It’s an impressive feat that could help future robots navigate the world independently.
It’s not time travel, but scientists can turn back clock on a quantum computer
Physicists from Russia, the U.S. and Switzerland have demonstrated that they can wind back the clock on a quantum computer a fraction of a second in time. Don't get too excited about the prospect of human time travel any time soon, though! Here's what their experiment involved.
Check out MIT and Harvard’s unusual new Venus flytrap robot gripper
Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University have developed a new kind of suction-based soft robot gripper that is capable of picking up and moving an assortment of objects. Check it out in all its Venus flytrap-inspired dexterity.
Don’t get burned! How to back crowdfunding projects the smart way
In the world of crowdfunding, there’s no such thing as a sure thing. But with this handy guide, you'll be able to spot the signs of a sketchy project and decrease your chances of getting burned.
Whatever happened to those dumb smart products we wrote about in 2017?
As manufacturers rush to get the next new smart gadgets out there, we wonder if all these inventions are necessary. We compiled this list of 10 of the quirkiest smart home products available in 2017 and decided to return to them in 2019 to see if they're still in existence. Here's what we found.
This streaming music service pays artists in Bitcoin, plants trees if you listen
Feedbands is an environmentally friendly subscription streaming music service that pays artists in Bitcoin, and plants trees in exchange for authenticated listens from customers. Here's what you need to know about this planet-saving quintessentially millennial sales pitch.
Google employee sets world record by calculating pi to 31 trillion digits
Google Cloud developer Emma Haruka Iwao has broken the world record by calculating pi to 31.4 trillion digits. The work was carried out using cloud computer number crunching over a four-month period in Google’s Osaka, Japan, office. What better way could there be to celebrate Pi Day?
Eat up! This robot is built to feed dinner to people who can’t feed themselves
Engineers have developed a robot that can feed people with disabilities that inhibit them from feeding themselves. Powered by an artificial intelligence algorithm, the system detects pieces of food on a plate, stabs them with a fork, and transports the morsels to a person’s mouth.
Scientists discover a strange shape that blocks almost all sound
Called an “acoustic meta-material,” the shape was developed based on a mathematically modeled design that enables it to cancel up to 94 percent of sound by reflecting certain frequencies back to their source.