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Sep 30, 2019

Flying Replacement Batteries Could Massively Boost a Drone’s Flight Time

Posted by in category: drones

Borrowing a trick from the Air Force, whose planes can complete long-range missions thanks to in-flight refueling from tanker aircraft, researchers at UC Berkeley showed off a novel way to keep small drones in the air almost indefinitely: flying replacement batteries that can be swapped without landing.

Sep 30, 2019

Should Children Form Emotional Bonds With Robots?

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

For better and worse, toys powered by AI are becoming an intimate part of kids’ lives.

Sep 30, 2019

You’re Never Alone in Video Games Anymore

Posted by in category: entertainment

Even if you play games solo, you’re increasingly accompanied by a virtual sidekick.

Sep 30, 2019

A ten-qubit solid-state spin register with remarkable quantum memory

Posted by in categories: computing, particle physics, quantum physics

In years to come, quantum computers and quantum networks might be able to tackle tasks that are inaccessible to traditional computer systems. For instance, they could be used to simulate complex matter or enable fundamentally secure communications.

The elementary building blocks of quantum information systems are known as qubits. For to become a tangible reality, researchers will need to identify strategies to control many qubits with very high precision rates.

Spins of individual particles in solids, such as electrons and nuclei have recently shown great promise for the development of quantum networks. While some researchers were able to demonstrate an elementary control of these qubits, so far, no one has reported entangled quantum states containing more than three spins.

Sep 30, 2019

SwarmTouch: A tactile interaction strategy for human-swarm communication

Posted by in categories: drones, nanotechnology, robotics/AI, space

Researchers at the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology (Skoltech) in Russia have recently introduced a new strategy to enhance interactions between humans and robotic swarms, called SwarmTouch. This strategy, presented in a paper pre-published on arXiv, allows a human operator to communicate with a swarm of nano-quadrotor drones and guide their formation, while receiving tactile feedback in the form of vibrations.

“We are working in the field of swarm of drones and my previous research in the field of haptics was very helpful in introducing a new frontier of tactile human-swarm interactions,” Dzmitry Tsetserukou, Professor at Skoltech and head of Intelligent Space Robotics laboratory, told TechXplore. “During our experiments with the swarm, however, we understood that current interfaces are too unfriendly and difficult to operate.”

Continue reading “SwarmTouch: A tactile interaction strategy for human-swarm communication” »

Sep 30, 2019

Researchers invent low-cost alternative to Bitcoin

Posted by in categories: bitcoin, computing, cryptocurrencies, law, security

The cryptocurrency Bitcoin is limited by its astronomical electricity consumption and outsized carbon footprint. A nearly zero-energy alternative sounds too good to be true, but as School of Computer and Communication Sciences (IC) Professor Rachid Guerraoui explains, it all comes down to our understanding of what makes transactions secure.

To explain why the system developed in his Distributed Computing Lab (DCL) represents a paradigm shift in how we think about cryptocurrencies—and about digital trust in general—Professor Rachid Guerraoui uses a legal metaphor: all players in this new system are “innocent until proven guilty.”

Continue reading “Researchers invent low-cost alternative to Bitcoin” »

Sep 30, 2019

The future of chips: SMART announces successful way to manufacture novel integrated silicon III-V chips

Posted by in categories: chemistry, computing, internet

The Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART), MIT’s Research Enterprise in Singapore, has announced the successful development of a commercially viable way to manufacture integrated Silicon III-V Chips with high-performance III-V devices inserted into their design.

In most devices today, -based CMOS chips are used for computing, but they are not efficient for illumination and communications, resulting in low efficiency and heat generation. This is why current 5G on the market get very hot upon use and would shut down after a short time.

This is where III-V semiconductors are valuable. III-V chips are made from elements in the 3rd and 5th columns of the elemental periodic table such as Gallium Nitride (GaN) and Indium Gallium Arsenide (InGaAs). Due to their , they are exceptionally well suited for optoelectronics (LEDs) and communications (5G etc) — boosting efficiency substantially.

Sep 30, 2019

Legendary inventor Dean Kamen jumpstarts human organ manufacturing in the US

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, military

Legendary inventor Dean Kamen is working on a venture to manufacture human organs with the backing of the Pentagon, Rockwell and others.

Sep 30, 2019

Researchers Move Closer to a Blood Test for Predicting When People Might Die

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

It’s not as morbid as you think; having a reliable way of predicting people’s mortality, especially as they age, could help to improve how doctors treat disease.

Sep 30, 2019

Faster-Than-Light Speeds Could Be Why Gamma-Ray Bursts Seem to Go Backwards in Time

Posted by in category: space

Time, as far as we know, moves only in one direction. But last year, researchers found events in some gamma-ray burst pulses that seemed to repeat themselves as though they were going backwards in time.

Now, new research suggests a potential answer for what might be causing this time reversibility effect. If waves within the relativistic jets that produce gamma-ray bursts travel faster than light — at ‘superluminal’ speeds — one of the effects could be time reversibility.

Such speeding waves could actually be possible. We know that when light is travelling through a medium (such as gas or plasma), its phase velocity is slightly slower than c — the speed of light in a vacuum, and, as far as we know, the ultimate speed limit of the Universe.