Category Technology/Electronics

Researchers at Tampere University have developed the world’s first soft touchpad that can sense the force, area and location of contact without electricity. The device utilises pneumatic channels, enabling its use in environments such as MRI machines and other conditions that are unsuitable for electronic devices. Soft devices like soft robots and rehabilitation aids could also benefit from this new technology.

Researchers at Tampere University have developed the world’s first soft touchpad that is able to sense the force, area and location of contact withou...

Researchers from the University of Bonn have trained an AI process to predict potential active ingredients with special properties. Therefore, they derived a chemical language model — a kind of ChatGPT for molecules. Following a training phase, the AI was able to exactly reproduce the chemical structures of compounds with known dual-target activity that may be particularly effective medications...

A team of AI researchers with Google’s DeepMind London group has found that certain large language models (LLMs) can serve as effective mediators between groups of people with differing viewpoints regarding a given topic. The work is published in the journal Science.

Over the past several decades, political divides have become common in many countries—most have been labeled as either liberal or conservative...

Organic electrochemical transistors (OECTs) are neuromorphic transistors made of carbon-based materials that combine both electronic and ionic charge carriers. These transistors could be particularly effective solutions for amplifying and switching electronic signals in devices designed to be placed on the human skin, such as smart watches, trackers that monitor physiological signals and other wearable technologies.

In contrast with conventional neuromorphic transistors, OECTs could operate reliably in wet or humid environments, which would be highly advantageous for both medical and wearable devices. Despite their potential, most existing OECTs are based on stiff materials, which can reduce the comfort of wearables and thus hinder their large-scale deployment.