Image: Forschungszentrum Jülich/T. EsatThis illustration shows a PTCDA molecule positioned upright on a silver platter [left]. Normally, the molecule would lie flat atop a layer of silver atoms [right]. If nanotechnology has captured the popular imagination in any way, it has likely been in the form of so-called molecular nanotechnology, in which nanoscale machines assemble… Continue reading Nanotechnology Takes Giant Leap Foward by Manipulating Molecules
Author: IEEE_Spectrum
Gore (the Gore-Tex Company) Thinks It Holds the Key to On-Skin Wearables
Photo: Gore I confess, I wasn’t familiar with W.L. Gore and Associates other than as the creator of Gore-Tex. So I wasn’t sure what I was going to find when I visited its new Silicon Valley innovation center last week. But then Paul Campbell and Linda Elkins, co-leaders of the center, pulled a sheet of… Continue reading Gore (the Gore-Tex Company) Thinks It Holds the Key to On-Skin Wearables
Social Home Robots: 35 Years of Progress
Photo: Roger Ressmeyer/Corbis/Getty ImagesTopo, a consumer and educational robot released in 1983 by Androbot. This Saturday, the Robot Film Festival is taking place in Portland, Ore. This is the 8th year of the festival, and after bouncing around between San Francisco, Pittsburgh, and Los Angeles, the festival has (at least temporarily) settled on the greatest… Continue reading Social Home Robots: 35 Years of Progress
Australia’s Digital Transformation Stumbles Badly
Photo: iStockphoto An Australian Senate committee published a 146-page report assessing the government’s progress toward its goal of becoming “one of the top three digital governments in the world…that other nations can look to for guidance and inspiration,” by 2025. Given what is in the report, other nations may want to look elsewhere for their… Continue reading Australia’s Digital Transformation Stumbles Badly
The Future of Cybersecurity Is the Quantum Random Number Generator
Illustration: Greg Mably In 1882, a banker in Sacramento, Calif., named Frank Miller developed an absolutely unbreakable encryption method. Nearly 140 years later, cryptographers have yet to come up with something better. Miller had learned about cryptography while serving as a military investigator during the U.S. Civil War. Sometime later, he grew interested in telegraphy and… Continue reading The Future of Cybersecurity Is the Quantum Random Number Generator
Popcorn-Driven Robotic Actuators
Photo: Cornell University It’s not that often I can steal the title of a paper and use it for a blog article that people will actually read, but I think “Popcorn-Driven Robotic Actuators” totally works, so credit for that to Steven Ceron at Cornell University, who’s the first author on this paper, presented at the IEEE International… Continue reading Popcorn-Driven Robotic Actuators
Low-Cost SBCs are Ideal for Industrial and Medical Applications
Industrial embedded computer system maker WinSystems has introduced a new series of single board computers (SBCs) in a NANO-ITX form factor. While measuring just 4.27 inches (120 mm) square, these ITX-N-3800 industrial SBCs offer robust I/O and expansion options, an extended operating temperature range, and abundant functionality for IIoT applications. The series is ideal for… Continue reading Low-Cost SBCs are Ideal for Industrial and Medical Applications
Asimo Still Improving Its Hopping and Jogging Skills
Image: Honda Research We learned last week that Honda is putting Asimo out to pasture, so to speak, which is a little sad, but not too sad: Honda is doing this because they want to instead focus on the other, more useful humanoid robots that they’ve been working on recently, like E2-DR. Honda learned a… Continue reading Asimo Still Improving Its Hopping and Jogging Skills