Category Technology/Electronics

The first-of-its-kind nanogenerator also acts as a weather station. UCLA researchers and colleagues have designed a new device that creates electricity from falling snow. The first of its kind, this device is inexpensive, small, thin and flexible like a sheet of plastic.

“The device can work in remote areas because it provides its own power and does not need batteries,” said senior author Richard Kaner, who holds UCLA’s Dr. Myung Ki Hong Endowed Chair in Materials Innovation. “It’s a very clever device – a weather station that can tell you how much snow is falling, the direction the snow is falling, and the direction and speed of the wind.”

The researchers call it a snow-based triboelectric nanogenerator, or snow TENG...

Hydrogen is a clean and renewable energy carrier that can power vehicles, with water as the only emission. Unfortunately, hydrogen gas is highly flammable when mixed with air, so very efficient and effective sensors are needed...

Tiny, individual, flexible ribbons of crystalline phosphorus have been made by UCL researchers in a world first, and they could revolutionise electronics and fast-charging battery technology.

Since the isolation of 2D phosphorene, which is the phosphorus equivalent of graphene, in 2014, more than 100 theoretical studies have predicted that new and exciting properties could emerge by producing narrow ‘ribbons’ of this material. These properties could be extremely valuable to a range of industries.

In a study published today in Nature, researchers from UCL, the University of Bristol, Virginia Commonwealth and University and École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, describe how they formed quantities of high-quality ribbons ...

Blue’s creators hope the new robot will accelerate the development of robotics for the home. Researchers have created a new low-cost, human friendly robot named Blue, designed to use recent advances in artificial intelligence and deep reinforcement learning to master intricate human tasks, all while remaining affordable and safe enough that every AI researcher could have one. The team hopes Blue will accelerate the development of robotics for the home.

Robots may have a knack for super-human strength and precision, but they still struggle with some basic h...