Category Technology/Electronics

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...

Imagine pointing your smartphone at a salty snack you found at the back of your pantry and immediately knowing if its ingredients had turned rancid. Devices called spectrometers can detect dangerous chemicals based on a unique “fingerprint” of absorbed and emitted light. But these light-splitting instruments have long been both bulky and expensive, preventing their use outside the lab.

Until now. Engineers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have developed a spectrometer that is so small and simple that it could integrate with the camera of a typical cell phone without sacrificing accuracy...

Scientists have made inroads in integrating electronic sensors with personalized 3D-printed prosthetics. With the growth of 3D printing, it’s entirely possible to 3D print your own prosthetic from models found in open-source databases. But those models lack personalized electronic user interfaces like those found in costly, state-of-the-art prosthetics.

Now, a Virginia Tech professor and his interdisciplinary team of undergraduate student researchers have made inroads in integrating electronic sensors with personalized 3D-printed prosthetics – a development that could one day lead to more affordable electric-powered prost...