MatterFab a metal 3D printing start-up in the US is developing a low-cost metal 3D printer. The company envisages it will be able to produce a 3D printer that is an order of magnitude cheaper than current metal printers, which typically range from the tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars. CEO and co-founder Matt Burris came upon the idea for a low-cost printer from s...
Guangzhou CTF Finance Centre in China is a 530m tall mixed-use tower and podium. The tower will house 208,000sm of office, 75,000sm of residential, and 46,000sm of hotel program. A stepped podium with spiraling roof terraces will house hotel function as well as 47,000sm of retail, restaurant and cinema program. The building will stand not only as a symbol of Guangzhou...
And now, a blast from the blast! Twenty-four years ago today, the Hubble Space Telescope, or (HST), was launched into space aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery. Unfortunately for the people involved it was far from plane sailing in the beginning. On reaching orbit, NASA realised that there was a serious problem with the telescope’s optical system. Engineers soon found the...
Bluetooth® is not longer a mere ear bud. The wireless technology has carved itself out a steadily growing niche in industrial automation, and early-adopters are reaping the benefits. The most obvious advantage of Bluetooth® wireless technology, of course, is the elimination of clunky cables for short-range device coordination, without sacrificing high-level security. ...
Car lovers and engineers-to-be will adore this news! Swedish Daniel Norée made his a surprising mission: to design a remote control truggy – a cross between a monster truck and a buggy – using a 3D printer. And guess what? He succeed in doing so with TopSolid 7! Daniel Norée built all the parts composing the truggy with the new generation of CAD/CAM solution. He firs...
IBM has just announced key modifications regarding Watson. IBM spent 14 years working on Watson which is an artificial learning system that digests large volumes of information to find hidden meanings. It will now be available for companies, academics, individual software developers as a cloud product. The specificity is that it will be more than twice as powerful via th...
The first electric tilt-rotor aircraft funded by AgustaWestland (a Finmeccanica Company) is the result of an impressive program, named “Project Zero”. It was orchestrated by multiple Finmeccanica Group subsidiaries, teaming up with proactive international (Italy, U.K., U.S.A. and Japan) companies outside of the traditional aerospace industry. The “Project Zero” is the pe...
Are we the only ones here to notice that computer geniuses tend to be younger and younger? And more and more creative! Jinha Lee started developing a 3-D desktop environment, the SpaceTop, while interning for Microsoft Applied Science (and taking a break from MIT!). This amazing new technology enables the user to grab web pages, videos and any other kind of documents, se...
As much as any of us might like taking a dip in the pool, there are certain places it’s better not to go swimming, like a nuclear reactor. But like any municipal swimming pool, the large pool used to moderate the temperature of nuclear reactions needs to be routinely inspected and cleaned. Currently, this hazardous task is carried out by a team of eight or so people usin...
Jonathan Petit, principal scientist at software firm Security Innovation has demonstrated how a homemade gadget can disable self-driving cars by creating phantom objects that fool their sensors. Petit revealed to technology magazine IEEE Spectrum, that if enough of these images were created the vehicle would be stopped dead in its tracks. He used a modified laser paired ...
Medical researchers are increasingly interested in developing smaller, wearable devices that can both monitor and treat patients, such as continuous-glucose meters, or Medtronic’s implantable ECG monitor. Just recently the Lieber Research Group at Harvard University unveiled an injectable mesh that is able to identity electrical signals within the brains of mice. The mes...
The Independent newspaper in the UK has claimed that car manufacturer Volkswagen actively suppressed academic research that shows a flaw in the security system it and other manufacturers use to immobilize their vehicles. The paper claims three university researchers from the UK and Holland were prevented from publishing their analysis of the built-in security system that...
Being a roboticist is often a thankless task, you spend hours coding every minute movement your robot can make and yet still it mightn’t move the way you want. Researchers have experimented with many techniques to both speed up and improve the process, including using motion capture. Well now a team from MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering is using this approach, ...
German tech firm SAP has claimed that it has created ‘the Uber of parking’ and ‘the Uber of refuelling,’ that would allow users to access services in a hassle free way, while also providing car-parking firms and fuel stations with a personalized way to show ads to their customers. Conceived in Palo Alto by the firm’s California labs, the two technologies use SAP’s Hana c...
New Zealand Martin Aircraft Company has announced the release of its redesigned Martin Jetpack, available mid-2014. Based on the P12 prototype, they managed to boost the performance in terms of the aircraft’s maneuverability. It can reach a speed of 74 kph and a height of 900 m, remain airborne for 30 minutes and travel for 20 miles. Before being available to the g...
We covered the recent Darpa Robotics Challenge during the week, Team Kaist from South Korea finished first in an impressive time of 44 minutes and 28 seconds, scooping the USD$2m in prize money. This contest was somewhat unique in that the robots were completely untethered. The robots’ efforts to navigate the obstacle course led to some spills and tumbles as they climbed...
A team from South Korea has won the Darpa Robotics Challenge. The competition involves a type of robot obstacle course which is designed to replicate conditions similar to the disaster zone that followed the 2011 Fukushima nuclear plant catastrophe. Team Kaist’s DRC Hubo bipedal robot finished faster than the other 22 competitors to claim the top prize of USD$2m from the...
Battelle, a research institute located around the world but headquartered in Ohio, US, has successfully tested its anti-icing system for aircraft in a leading wind tunnel facility. The carbon nanotube-base HeatCoat system is reportedly lighter and less power hungry than existing systems. Designed for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), although applicable to larger commercia...
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in the US has released its proposed guidelines for regulating commercial drone use. The news comes in the wake of the FAA’s agreement with CNN, which will allow the network to legally experiment with UAVs in producing video content. CNN’s deal was just one of several waivers the FAA granted to select companies. The new guidelines...
The UK Department of Transport has just announced that driverless cars will be allowed to drive on public roads as part of a trial in four British cities. The prototypes which look somewhat like golf-carts will be appearing on the streets of Milton Keynes, Greenwich, Bristol and Coventry in time for the summer. The British government wants the UK to become a leader in th...
Back in May, we wrote about 3D printed houses in China, which used printers larger than the house itself. Well we’ve found their kid brothers! Researchers at the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia, IAAC, in Barcelona have created small but mobile 3D printer robots. The robots nicknamed “Minibuilders” are capable of constructing entire structures from the...
The Internet of Things (IoT), an essential part of Industry 4.0, is the major technology trend of the near-future. The IoT already connects billions of industrial devices from barcodes to sensors to networks, which allows vast amounts of data to be collected and analyzed in a cost effective manner. Serial communication, an essential part of industrial connectivity, is st...
There has been a lot of talk about driverless cars over the last few years, Google is just one of the large players to have stoked the flames of interest on this topic. The tech-giant made an announcement last summer that it was to begin a limited production of a two-seater autonomous vehicle. More traditional vehicle manufacturers Audi and Daimler have since brought out...
The global fame of the Netherlands in the area of 3D printing has combined with its capital’s recognition for bridges in a collaboration by Heijmans, MX3D, and Joris Laarman Lab. The first-of-its-kind project aims to create a 3D printed steel pedestrian bridge that will span one of Amsterdam’s historic canals, though the exact location has not yet been made public. Plan...
In California and Spain, robots now judge ripeness and harvest individual strawberries. Others handle nursery tasks. Out in the field, one company’s prototype is designed to dig holes, plant seeds and add chemical inputs, walking in any direction while avoiding obstacles. A group of such machines could cover an entire field together. Another model is already at wor...
A prototype driverless tractor can be programmed to perform a variety of field tasks, following the most efficient route and avoiding obstructions. A remote operator can monitor progress through onboard sensors and cameras. Another approach is to replace the tractor with a modular implement carrier. The prototype is suited to performing multiple jobs and can run 7 hours ...
In the Internet of Robotic Things, sensors gather production data and robots communicate with each other in real time via the web. For example, dedicated algorithms enable an automated bin picking system to identify and retrieve parts randomly mixed in a crate. Intercommunicating robots can modify procedures for more flexible production. Such an integrated system require...
The open, cloud-based system offers customers a way to capture and leverage the data in their machinery. It’s designed to make the IoT connection simple and inexpensive. MindSphere’s initial applications, Visual Analyzer and Fleet Manager, connect industrial systems to the cloud for tracking and analysis. The company also advises clients on how to make the mo...
The theft of Democratic Party data during the recent US election campaign is just one example. Outdated software and hardware are a real weakness, with update cycles sometimes as long as 20 years. Increasingly prevalent cloud connections are another source of vulnerability. The oil and gas sector is a prime target, but the widespread growth of Industry 4.0 means no field...
The term refers to inactive internal files that a company has tucked away in storage. Mining it could be worth millions. New software can selectively retrieve useful information, compare and link data from different sources and use it to improve efficiency or open new commercial avenues. For example, drug companies can use these techniques to spur innovation by fishing o...
On-site systems are often overwhelmed by the exploding quantity of data input and new connectivity and access demands. Cloud-based solutions can save hardware and IT management costs while offering access from anywhere, at any time via a variety of devices. In addition to off-the-shelf solutions, custom apps are being created for individual industries. New firms see adva...
The Akisai greenhouse project has been producing long-life, low-potassium lettuce since 2014. Sensors send vital environmental data to the cloud in real time. This enables remote management, with certain adjustments being performed automatically. Chemical-free and hosting few microbes, the lettuce is consumable without washing. Another program uses cloud-linked pedometer...
Kontron, a leading global provider of Embedded Computing Technology (ECT), today announced its new embedded mini-ITX motherboard with Intel® Core™ i3, i5, i7 or 6th Generation Intel® Xeon® E3 14 nm Quad Core CPUs. Its extended features and higher performance make the new Kontron mITX-SKL-S-C236 motherboard a perfect solution for Point of Sale or Point of Information scen...
SW1 EtherCAT drives by Ever Elettronica are easily interfaceable with the most common PLC available on the market. Our SW1 EtherCAT drives meet the CoE (CanOpen Over EtherCAT with DS402 profile) protocol and they can also be controlled in DC mode (Distributed Clock). By choosing these drives you will realize that their easy to use, along with fair prices, will prove to...
New EU legislation—the Privacy Shield Framework—requires information about individuals to be protected from surveillance or use by non-EU entities, be they governments or private organizations. A possible solution is a hybrid cloud system. Here, data storage is local, while the advantages of general cloud use are maintained. Data is uploaded for processing, then immediat...
Operating 100 million times faster than traditional machines, quantum computers could revolutionize genome modeling, weather forecasting and other processes. Such machines also could search immense databases instantaneously. But such enormous power also carries enormous risk. Quantum computers will be able to crack today’s encryption codes, making safety measures e...
